ii2 MENDEL: 



was not the case. And so, says Mr. Punnett 

 (P- 55) : 



" The position of the biologist of to-day is much 

 the same as that of the chemist a century ago, 

 when Dalton enunciated the law of constant pro- 

 portions. In either case the keynote has been Dis- 

 continuity the discontinuity of atom, and the 

 discontinuity of the variations in living forms. 

 With a clear perception of this principle, and after 

 a long and laborious period of analysis, the im- 

 posing superstructure of modern chemistry has 

 been raised on the foundation of the atom. Not 

 otherwise may it be with biology, though here 

 perforce the analytical process must be lengthier, 

 both from the more complex nature of the material, 

 and from the greater time involved in experiments 

 on living forms." 



Characters of colour are not difficult to study, 

 and a large number of the recent researches into 

 Mendelian principles have dealt with that class of 

 observation. Thus, according to Lock (p. 200) 

 " colour characters which follow Mendel's law 

 have been observed in mice, rats, rabbits, guinea- 

 pigs, pigeons, fowls, cats and so on. In butterflies 

 and other insects, and even in snails, similar pheno- 

 mena have been described." An interesting point 

 is that in plants possessing both coloured and white 

 varieties, so far as investigations have been pur- 

 sued, the white forms are recessive to the coloured. 

 Yellow-seeded maize is dominant over the white- 

 seeded variety, and the so-called " sugar " is 

 recessive to the " starch " variety. 



