PROCEEDINGS OF THE OHIO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 129 



quite evident that the term "mutation" cannot continue to 

 include both types. As a co-ordinate term fluctuating 

 variations may be spoken of as fluctuations. 



Under abnormal variations must be classified forms 

 ranging from monstrosities to slight departures from the 

 ordinary condition, some of which are undoubtedly due to 

 the losses or modifications of unit characters through the 

 action of extraordinary stimuli, while others may be due 

 to abnormal and unequal distribution of chromosones 

 occurring at the time of their division. The idiomutations 

 of Plate are here included. Once more, however, there 

 should be emphasized the lack of any evidence as to any 

 character, unit, factor or gene actually new thus being 

 added. 



The answer to the questions as to the progress made 

 in the application of evolution to the creation of new forms 

 rests in the statement that the attack on the problem is 

 becoming more concentrated. The selection of fluctuations 

 has been tried and has failed. Efforts by means of amphi- 

 mutations end in a maze of circles with no evident progress. 

 Idiomutations, so far as one may judge from the evidence, 

 present retrogression rather than advancement. It is by 

 means of pure lines under normal conditions that one may 

 search with advantage for cumulations, the units by which 

 to build the new. There the evidence will be unobscured 

 either by the pyrotechnic of Mendelian formulae, or by the 

 facticiousness of abnormal stimuli. Fluctuations will be 

 present but statistical methods will permit their evaluation. 

 Should the measurement of the mean in the tenth or even 

 the one hundredth generation present no advancement, 

 failure is not necessarily implied. Nature has devoted 

 fifty millions of years or more to her work. There should 

 be no discouragement if a few paltry years of investigation 

 fail in duplicating her methods. 



It is with a feeling not unmixed with pessimism, how- 

 ever, that one views the conditions under which work of 



