874 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 833 



confronted with, because of the fact that, 

 owing to public opinion, he can not enforce 

 stringent and drastic measures to guard 

 against the stealing of such things as chickens 

 and eggs. 



One further fact to which we wish to call 

 attention here has to do with the character of 

 the barring exhibited by certain of the F^ 

 birds. In the paper describing the F^ birds 

 special stress was laid on the fact that the 

 barring in these birds was not of such fine 

 quality from the fancier's standpoint as in 

 pure Barred Rocks. No one familiar with 

 good specimens of that breed could ever mis- 

 take a barred F^ bird for a pure Rock. In cer- 

 tain of the F, birds this is not the case. Cer- 

 tain of the F„ matings produced birds which 

 had a much finer, sharper and cleaner cut 

 barred pattern, or, to adopt a technical expres- 

 sion, a " snappier " barring than any pure 

 Barred Rock in the Station stock. In other 

 words, it appears that though the heterozy- 

 gous nature of the F, birds was apparent in 

 their external characters, the segregation of 

 barred pattern in the F^ generation was not 

 merely perfect, but, to speak paradoxically, 

 was more than perfect, i. e., produced some- 

 thing better than existed in the parent stock. 

 It may be said, in passing, that the same thing 

 is true with reference to comb types. In the 

 F^ generation there were very few perfect pea 

 combs, from the fancier's standpoint. In the 

 F, generation where pea combs segregated out 

 relatively many of them were of fine show- 

 room quality, and relatively few were badly 

 defective or intermediate between pea and 

 single. The relation of the individuality of 

 the birds bred to the quality of the segrega- 

 tion products furnishes an exceedingly in- 

 teresting and important problem. 



One further point needs mentioning. In 

 the Fj generation the male birds produced by 

 the cross of B.P.R. d" X C.I.G. 2 and its re- 

 ciprocal were all alike in gametic formula and 

 external appearance. The F„ results indicate 

 that the same results were obtained with F^ 

 males from the cross B.P.R. c? X C.I.G. 2 as 

 with those obtained from the cross C.I.G. c? 

 X B.P.R. ?. These two kinds of males were. 



in other words, equivalent in fact as well as in 

 theory. 



In later papers the details of the results 

 here briefly reported will be presented, and a 

 discussion of the different types of non-barred 

 birds and the laws of their appearance en- 

 tered upon. 



By way of summary it may be said that ex- 

 periments involving 670 adult birds in the F^ 

 generation, arising from all possible matings 

 of F^ birds inter se and with the parent pure 

 breeds (Barred Plymouth Rock and Cornish 

 Indian Game) give results in regard to the 

 inheritance of the barred color pattern which 

 are in accord with a Mendelian hypothesis of 

 sex-limited inheritance of this character, de- 

 veloped along lines originally suggested by 

 Spillman. 



Raymond PearI/ 

 Frank M. Surface 



Biological Laboratoky, 

 Maine Espekiment Station, 

 November 21, 1910 



THE ASTRONOMICAL AND ASTROPHTSWAL 

 SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

 The eleventh annual meeting of the Astronom- 

 ical and Aatrophysieal Society of America was 

 held at Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, 

 Mass., on August 17, 18 and 19. The society was 

 welcomed to Cambridge by Professor E. C. Picker- 

 ing, both in his capacity as president and as di- 

 rector of the observatory. Among those present 

 were more than a score of foreign astronomers 

 and physicists, who had come to this country for 

 the purpose of attending this meeting and later 

 that of the International Union for Cooperation 

 in Solar Research at Mount Wilson in California. 

 The complete list of those in attendance is as fol- 

 lows : Miss Allen, Miss Breslin, Miss Cannon, 

 Miss Carpenter, Miss Cushman, Mrs. Fleming, 

 Miss Harwood, Miss Hayes, Miss Leavitt, Miss 

 Leland, Miss O'Reilly, Miss Walker, Miss Water- 

 bury, Mrs. Whitin, Miss Whiting, Messrs. Apple, 

 Archer, Baeklund, Bailey, Barton, Bell, Belop- 

 olsky, L. Brown, L. Campbell, Cirera, Coit, Corn- 

 stock, Cortie, Cotton, Dinwiddie, C. L. Doolittle, 

 Douglass, Dugan, Duncan, Dyson, Edwards, Eich- 

 elberger, Fabry, Fisher, Fowler, Gimenez, Hep- 

 perger, Hills, Humphreys, Hunt, Hussey, E. S. 

 King, Larmor, 0. Lundin, C. A. R. Lundin, Man- 



