No. 516] 



XOTES AXD LITERATURE 



757 



foregoing statements are supported mainly by quotations from 

 various recognized authorities. 



Chapters 3 and 5, dealing with the Formation of the Ova and 

 Fertilization respectively, are vulnerable at various points to 

 the criticisms of gratuitous assumption, specious reasoning and 

 flagrant disregard of recent biological advance, more particu- 

 larly respecting the questions of heredity and sex. Absolutely 

 no notice is taken of the work of Bateson, Davenport and Castle 

 on Mendelian inheritance, nor of the cytological and experi- 

 mental results concerning the determination of sex respectively 

 of Wilson and Correns. But however scant the appreciation of 

 the bearing of results from non-human materials on the general 

 problem, and however radical the ideas here expressed, the 

 theory as such remains essentially unaffected. 



In chapter 3 it is urged that "Each ovum has its own definite 

 and unalterable sex, being either male or female according to 

 the ovary from which it is derived." Though microscopic evi- 

 dence of such difference is not yet forthcoming it is asserted to 

 obtain "just as between the eggs of two different women." 

 "Similarly the ovum of a negress is indistinguishable by our 

 present appliances from the ovum of a blonde, yet we know full 

 well that if fertilized one produces a black child while the other 

 gives rise to a white one" (p. 29). Assuming, as this line of 

 reasoning does, that there is identity (or at least close similar- 

 ity) between the process of sex-inheritance and color-inheri- 

 tance, both would seem to be due, in a large measure, to the 

 influence of the male. For the ovum of a negress fertilized by 

 the spermatozoon of a blonde male might give rise to a black 

 child, but it would more likely be a mulatto, perhaps almost in- 

 distinguishable from a blonde— similarly sex may be influenced 

 or determined by the spermatozoon. 



Identity in the mechanism of heredity, whether it concern sex, 

 color or other unit characters, is widely accepted ; but Dr. Daw- 

 son seems to posit such identity or the absence of it depending 

 upon the conclusion he desires to reach. Above he posits iden- 



conclusion. 



that the "provision in th/human ovum of multiple ZemxeTof 

 entrance (the radiating pores of the zona pellucida) looks as 

 tlmuLrh multiple spermatozoa are required to enter thereby in 

 order to fertilize the human ovum," he argues that the "differ- 



