INHERITANCE OF FECUNDITY 233 
be used to start a pure race with such characters; hence, by the 
elimination of one recessive character at a time, it is possible to 
breed a race with special desired characters. 
Mendel’s law, from its complexity and apparent confusion, will 
not be of definite value to the average farm poultryman, yet it 
is essential that the student have a clear understanding of the 
subject in order that the behavior of characteristics in transmission 
can be better appreciated. The principles which the law presents 
have led to other important discoveries in the phenomena of 
breeding. Some of Mendel’s deductions in his original records are 
discredited, owing to faulty analysis, yet the results of his work 
are more far-reaching than those attained by any other one man. 
Inheritance of Fecundity.—The transmission of the character 
of producing a large quantity of eggs is one of the most important 
problems before the poultry breeder, and some valuable work is 
being done at agricultural experiment stations. 
The discussions pertaining to the inheritance of fecundity, or 
egg production, as given here are based upon the work of Dr. 
Raymond Pearl at the Maine Station. Quotations and facts are 
taken from his papers on the subject; more especially, Maine 
Bulletin 192. 
Among the leading biologists who are at present making a study 
of breeding problems, two general views are held as to certain funda- 
mental principles of heredity: (1) The “ statistical’ conception of 
inheritance, and (2) the ‘ genotype” conception of inheritance. 
“The statistical conception of inheritance is that point of view 
which assumes, either by direct assertion or by implication, that 
all variations are of equal significance, and consequently that all 
may be treated statistically as one homogeneous mass, provided 
that they conform to purely statistical laws of similarity.” 
In studying heredity in the past, the mistake has been made 
of noting a few individuals only, and these exceptional cases have 
often led to conclusions which are worse than useless because of 
their extreme range of variability. The advocates of this line of 
study use this as an argument in favor of their point of view, and 
make the statement that to study inheritance with any degree of 
reliability the race as a whole must be considered, and not simply 
the individuals which go to make it up. This method is compara- 
tively new, especially when applied to poultry, and necessitates 
a large mass of material representing sufficiently large numbers 
of the breed under consideration to be actually representative. 
