280 



SCmNGE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 165. 



editor I disclaim. I beg, therefore, that you 

 publish this letter in the next issue. 



J. W. Powell. 

 Bureau of AurERicAN Ethnology, 

 Washington, D. C. 



[In view of this letter and of others that have 

 been received it is to be regretted that the note 

 in question was admitted, especially without 

 the signature of the writer. Leading news- 

 papers that have supported President McKinley, 

 such as the Philadelphia Ledger, the New York 

 Evening Post and the Boston Transcript, have 

 characterized his action in the appointment of 

 a Fish Commissioner as weak and illegal, and 

 it was supposed that this point of view would 

 be shared by all men of science, however fully 

 they might in other respects support the present 

 administration. — Ed. Science.] 



A CHAEACTER REGULARLY ACQUIRED BUT 

 NEVER INHERITED. 



One cause of the conflicting testimony con- 

 cerning the inheritance of acquired characters 

 is the difficulty of deciding whether a new or 

 abnormal structure appeared in the individual 

 after birth through a somatogenic change, or 

 whether it was due to a prenatal or blastogenic 

 variation. Whatever value we may attach to 

 the present case, it is certainly interesting and 

 avoids any diflBculty of this kind. 



The sternum of heavy perching birds belong- 

 ing to the order Gallinacei, which includes the 

 domestic fowl, the turkey and their wild an- 

 cestors, as well as the grouse, has the well- 

 known keel shape, and for some months after 

 birth is semi-cartilaginous, and therefore soft 

 and yielding. The keel is applied like a blunt 

 knife edge to the hard perch. The transverse 

 line of pressure caused by the weight of the 

 body not supported by the legs soon produces 

 a deformity which lasts for life. A cushion- 

 shaped enlargement may be formed, or the keel 

 may be bent or twisted in a variety of ways. 

 Some such deformity is inevitable from the me- 

 chanical conditions present. Moreover, this 

 has been taking place not merely for a few 

 generations, but during the whole course of the 



later evolution of these animals. At the end of 

 each generation the individual variations thus 

 acquired are completely effaced, and the young 

 always begin life with the sternum normal. 



The keel of the sternum in carinate birds has 

 apparently arisen in correlation with the pec- 

 toral muscles concerned in flight, and if we as- 

 sume that the variations which led to the keel 

 were of a blastogenic character the inheritance 

 of somatogenic changes which deform this struc- 

 ture could not at the same time have occurred. 

 The keel has attained its present form, that of 

 a thin vertical plate, in spite of those somato- 

 genic changes in the life of the individual which 

 tended to flatten and deform it. 



No direct evidence that mutilations or de- 

 formities of a somatogenic nature are inherited 

 has yet been obtained, and the theoretical im- 

 probability of such occurrences is very great. 

 The fact that many animals preserve a charac- 

 teristic form and symmetry from age to age, 

 and even^from one geological epoch to another, 

 is evidence that somatogenic characters are not 

 inherited and cannot be. It is well known that 

 certain decapod Crustacea, such as some of the 

 common crabs and the lobster, practice self- 

 mutilation or autotomy. Here a special mech- 

 anism has been developed in the large che- 

 liped by the action of which it is cut off in a 

 certain way and at a definite place. When the 

 large claw is seized by an enemy it is quickly 

 amputated by the twitching of certain muscles 

 stimulated by reflex nervous impulses, and a 

 new limb in time grows out in place of the one 

 cast off. The Lamarckian principle does not 

 help us much in this case, nor in supposing that 

 the germ cells in some mysterious way register 

 every somatogenic change, even if this is not 

 exactly reproduced in succeeding generations. 

 Francis H. Hbrrick. 



the third international congress of ap- 

 plied chemistry. 

 To THE Editor op Science : The organiza- 

 tion committee of the Third International Con- 

 gress of Applied Chemistry, which is to be held 

 in Vienna during the coming summer, has fixed 

 the date of the meeting from the 28th of July 

 to August 2, 1898. Some time during the month 

 of February programs and announcements will 



