u 



MR. J. LEWIS BOXHOTE OX THE 



PAPERS. 



1. On the Inheritance o£ the Webfoot Character in Pigeons. 

 By J. Lewis Bonhote, M.A., F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



[Received August 29, 1910: Read November 15, 1910.1 



(Text-figures 3 & 4.) 



In the P.Z.S. for 1905, p. 550, Mr. Staples Browne published 

 a paper on the webbed-foot character in Pigeons, and from a 

 series of careful experiments conducted by him the results seemed 

 to show fairly conclusively that the webbed foot was a Mendelian 

 character and was recessive to the normal or non-webbed foot. 



In this paper the author drew an arbitrary line and counted as 

 webbed all birds which showed on one foot a web at least to the 

 first interphalangeal joint of the 2nd and 3rd digits and to the 

 second interphalangeal joint of the 4th digit, any bird with 

 less webbing being considered as normal. In my experiments 

 I have followed his distinction for the sake of uniformity. All 

 his results, with one exception, go to show that the webbed foot 

 behaves as a pure Mendelian recessive chai-acter. 



In the aberrant case tw^o F^ birds were mated together for two 

 seasons, producing altogether 23 birds, in none of which the web 

 appeared. Both these F^ birds were subsequently tested and proved 

 to be carrying the webbed character. 



In thespi'ing of 1905, Mr. Staples Brow-ne kindly gave me a 

 pair of his webbed birds [Exp. 14, toe. cit.], and during that year 

 and the two subsequent years this pair produced nothing but 

 webbed birds. 



In 1907 Mr. F. W. Smalley, a well-known and successful breeder 

 of fancy Pigeons, w^rote to me in regard to some webbed birds 

 which tended to make their appearance from time to time in his 



Table I. , 



stud. At my request he kindly sent me their pedigrees, from 

 w^hich it will be seen. that the inheritance was strictly Mendeliaii. 

 and entirely bore out Mr. Staples Biwvne's results. . 



