MENDEL’S LAWS OF HEREDITY 397 
are inbred tend to liberate latent characters when the ordinary course 
of breeding is departed from. 
Hurst contrasts the following characters, which usually show them- 
selves dominants and recessives; but it has to be admitted that the 
dominance—always complete for some characters—is for others fre- 
quently, or even always incomplete—i.e., showing traces of the corre- 
sponding recessives. 
Dominant Characters Recessive Characters 
Rose comb Leaf comb, single comb 
White plumage Black plumage, buff plumage 
Extra toes Normal toes 
Feathered shanks Bare shanks 
Crested head Uncrested head 
Brown eggs White eggs 
Broodiness Non-broodiness 
Davenport’s copiously illustrated work is also of great interest. 
He shows in case after case that the character dominant in the first 
hybrids is more or less influenced by the recessive character. Polish 
fowls with a large hernia of the brain on the top of the head were 
paired with Minorcas with normal heads. The hybrids showed no 
hernia, but most of them showed a frontal prominence. When the 
hybrids were inbred the hernia occurred in 23.5 per cent—a close 
approximation to the theoretical 25 per cent. 
Single-combed black Minorcas were crossed with white-crested 
black Polish fowls with a very small bifid comb. The hybrids had 
combs single in front, split behind. When the hybrids were inbred 
there resulted in a total of 101 offspring, 29.7 per cent with single 
combs (like Minorcas), 46.5 per cent with Y-shaped combs, and 23.8 
per cent with no combs or only papillae (like the Polish forms). Here, 
again, the result is in a general way Mendelian, but the Y-like comb 
is a complication. 
Pigeons.—R. Staples-Browne crossed a web-footed pigeon (an 
occasional discontinuous variation) with a normal form, and got six 
normal young. In other words, the web-foot character is recessive 
to the normal foot character. The hybrids were inbred, and in one 
case produced nine with normal feet and three with webbed-feet—a 
Mendelian splitting-up. But from another pair of hybrids seventeen 
normal offspring resulted. Thus, the illustration of Mendelian 
inheritance is inconclusive. Besides the numbers were too small. 
We have noticed elsewhere that crossing different breeds of pigeons 
often results in forms which more or less resemble the reputed original 
