28 MENDELISM chap, hi 



researches during the latter part of his life. His 

 closing years were shadowed with ill-health and em- 

 bittered by a controversy with the Government on 

 a question of the rights of his monastery. He died of 

 Bright's disease in 1884. 



Note. — Shortly after the discovery of Mendel's paper a need 

 was felt for terms of a general nature to express the constitution 

 of individuals in respect of inherited characters, and Bateson ac- 

 cordingly proposed the words homozygote and heterozygote. An 

 individual is said to be homozygous for a given character when it 

 has been formed by two gametes each bearing the character, and 

 all the gametes of a homozygote bear the character in respect of 

 which it is homozygous. When, however, the zygote is formed by 

 two gametes of which one bears the given character while the other 

 does not, it is said to be heterozygous for the character in question, 

 and only half the gametes produced by such a heterozygote bear 

 the character. An individual may be homozygous for one or more 

 characters, and at the same time may be heterozygous for others. 



