SEGREGATION AND DOMINANCE 121 



Of these, blending inheritance may be called the 

 typical "melting-pot" in which contributions from 

 the two parents fuse into something intermediate 

 and different from that which was present in either 

 parent. Galton illustrated this process by the 

 inheritance of human stature in which a tall and 

 a short parent produce offspring intermediate in 

 height. A more thorough consideration of this type 

 of inheritance will be presented in Chapter IX. 



By the method of alternative inheritance the pa- 

 rental contributions do not melt upon union, but 

 retain their individuality, reappearing intact in the 

 offspring. In inheritance of human eye-color, for ex- 

 ample, the offspring usually have eyes colored like 

 those of one of the parents when the parental eye- 

 color is unlike in the two cases, rather than eyes 

 intermediate in color between those of both parents. 



According to Galton particulate inheritance results 

 when the offspring present a mosaic of the parental 

 characters, that is, when parts of both the maternal 

 and paternal characters reappear in the offspring 

 without losing their identities by blending or without 

 excluding one another. Piebald races of mice arising 

 from parents with solid but different colors have 

 been cited as illustrations of this sort of inheritance, 

 although it will be seen later in connection with the 

 ''factor hypothesis" that another interpretation of 

 this phenomenon is not only possible but probable. 



The distinctions between these three categories 

 of inheritance are diagrammatically represented in 

 Figure 41. 



