328 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 844 



was upsetting the very foundations upon which 

 heating and ventilating science was built. 



It seems as if there must be somewhere in 

 existence the knowledge which we need at the 

 present time. Man has become in a compara- 

 tively few years a preeminently house-abiding 

 creature. He lives in localities which are 

 paved, where there is little opportunity for 

 evaporation, which is a necessary condition 

 for human living. Present conditions are not 

 right. Does any one know in what respect our 

 present schemes of ventilation are wrong, why 

 delicate children and tuberculous persons get 

 well out of doors, and fail to do so in-doors, 

 and what we need to do to make in-door liv- 

 ing as healthy as out-door living? If we can 

 find the answers to these questions we shall 

 have discovered something which will affect 

 the vitality of all the children, and ultimately 

 of all the adults, who live in buildings through- 

 out the civilized world. 



Any reference to original sources which any 

 of your readers can give will be most grate- 

 fully welcomed. 



Luther H. Gulick, M.D. 



EiJSSELL Sage Foundation, 



1 Madison Avenue, New Yoek City 



' " mutations " of waagen and " mutations " 

 of de veies oe " rectigradations " of 



OSBORN 



It is important to distinguish clearly be- 

 tween what may be called the " mutations " of 

 Waagen, the " mutations " of De Vries, and 

 the rectigradations of Osborn. By careful 

 examination of Waagen's original paper and 

 the usage of this paper on the continent by 

 subsequent paleontologists it appears certain 

 that the mutations of "Waagen are stages of 

 transition between Linnsean species occurring 

 in direct lines of phyletic ascent. These 

 stages are distinguished by progress, although 

 perhaps very slight in a number of different 

 characters. The mutations of De Vries have 

 not been distinguished in paleontology, but 

 only in botany, and through botany extended 

 to zoology. They represent the sudden or dis- 

 continuous jumps or saltations through which 

 new characters arise. Definite direction is 

 given to these characters only through selec- 



tion. The " rectigradations " of Osborn are 

 difl^erent in significance from either of the 

 above; the term refers to the stages of single 

 new characters occurring at definite points, 

 hence originally termed by Osborn " definite 

 variations." The mutations of De Vries can 

 not be used by paleontologists, with whom the 

 original term saltation would be preferable. 

 Henry Fairfield Osborn 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Inheritance of Characteristics in Domestic 

 Fowl. By Charles B. Davenport. Car- 

 negie Institution of Washington, Publica- 

 tion No. 121. Pp. i + 100, PI. 1-12. 1909. 

 Issued February 7, 1910. 

 This quarto volume contains a detailed ac- 

 count of the results of the continuation of the 

 studies on inheritance in domestic poultry 

 carried out by Dr. Davenport at the Station 

 for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring 

 Harbor, the first instalment of the results of 

 these investigations having appeared as Car- 

 negie Institution Publication No. 52. A great 

 mass of new and interesting facts are brought 

 forth in the present work. The book is di- 

 vided into twelve chapters, of which the first 

 eleven deal severally with some of the char- 

 acters which experience shows to be most diffi- 

 cult of definite analysis in respect to their 

 hereditary behavior. Nearly every character 

 discussed is one which at first acquaintance 

 appears not at all to follow Mendelian prin- 

 ciples (at least in their simplest form) in in- 

 heritance. Because of this fact they are of all 

 the greater interest and significance to the 

 student of heredity, and any systematic and 

 thorough attempt at their analysis, such as is 

 here made, is most heartily to be welcomed 

 and commended, even though one may not be 

 prepared to accept in toto the final interpreta- 

 tions reached. The extensive collection of 

 facts brought together in this work loses none 

 of its value if the theoretical interpretation 

 should later be changed. 



Chapter I. deals with the inheritance of the 

 split or Y comb which appears in the progeny 

 of a cross between a single-combed bird and 

 one possessing a V or " horned " comb, such as 



