52 S. J. HOLMES AND H. M. LOOMIS. 



the conclusions of Hurst and the Davenports that blue behaves 

 as a recessive to the pigmented condition. Blue x brown or black 

 gives either brown or black, or brown or black with hazel, gray 

 or blue which is the expected result if brown or black are hetero- 

 zygotes. Blue x blue as a rule gives only blue. However 

 the rule is not without exceptions. In one case a man with 

 brown eyes was born of blue-eyed parents. Another instance 

 was communicated by a gentleman who stated that both his 

 parents had light blue eyes. Of their seven children all had blue 

 eyes except one sister whose eyes were described as brown or 

 dark hazel. Pearson gives one instance in which one member of 

 a family of six children born of blue-eyed parents had dark brown 

 eyes like those of the father's maternal grandfather. 



In gray x blue matings, gray and blue were the usual result 

 but brown eyes appeared in seven out of 72 offspring. In gray 

 X gray matings brown eyes appeared once out of 17 offspring. 

 Black eyes resulted in a few instances from brown x gray and 

 brown x blue matings, but these cases may have been due to 

 errors of classification, as brown eyes, especially if dark, are fre- 

 quently described as black. Matings in which both parents have 

 black or brown eyes may give either dark-eyed or light-eyed 

 children. Thus black x black gave offspring with black, brown, 

 gray and blue eyes. Matings in which one parent had dark 

 eyes and the other light gave both dark-eyed and light-eyed 

 offspring, but the proportion of the latter was considerably 

 greater than in the previous case. In general we may say that 

 the more darkly pigmented condition is dominant over the 

 lighter, black over brown, brown over gray or blue, and gray 

 over blue. 



The inheritance of eye color in man, as is well known, is to a 

 considerable degree alternative. How far it is Mendelian is a 

 question rather difficult to answer on account of the intergrada- 

 tion of colors, limited knowledge of the ancestry of the families, 

 and other causes. In man it is difficult to distinguish the pure 

 dominants from the dominant-recessives ; in fact it is impossible 

 to do so with data covering only three generations. While it is 

 probable that the blues are recessives there is no certainty in 

 regard to the browns and blacks. Were blue-gray bearing 



