No. 603] SHORTER ARTICLES AND DISCUSSION II 



sea, must either have never spawned or cast its spawn into the 



The larvffi of eels as well as of some other soft-rayed species 

 are quite pellucid, without pigment cells and with *'a roomy 

 space between the skin and the muscles, distended by a watery 

 fluid." Many of these larvae, in their transformation to the con- 

 dition of young fishes become much reduced in size, though in- 

 creasing in weight, by the obliteration of these interspaces. 



Professor Meek's studies pass through the whole long series of 

 fish-families. For want of space, we may not follow them further 

 in these pages. We must give the work, as a whole, very high 

 praise as carefully, intelligently and scientifically done, and as 

 constituting a reference book of great value. The author has 

 well covered the range of the periodicals which treat of the dis- 

 tribution and habits of fishes. He seems, however, to have over- 

 looked the most extensive recent work of a similar range, "Jor- 

 dan's Guide to the Study of Fishes," published in New York in 

 1905. 



David Starr Jordan 



NEW LIGHT ON BLENDING AND MENDELIAN 

 INHERITANCE 

 Under the above heading. Dr. Castle reviews a paper by Yuzo 

 Hoshino on the inheritance of the flowering time in peas and 



Since reading this review, Prof. Hoshino kindly sent us his 

 paper, and we have ourselves examined it with care to see 

 whether indeed it necessitates Dr. Castle's rather sweeping con- 

 clusions, namely, that certain genes are themselves modified by 

 crossbreeding, one of the conclusions of Hoshino himself, and 

 that selection within a pure line, within a genotypically pure 

 population is effective. 



It is well known that Dr. Castle counts among the few last 

 geneticians, who still believe that the genes themselves are modi- 

 fiable by selection. Hitherto in nearly all his writings on the 

 subject Dr. Castle claimed, that unit characters vary, and may 

 be modified by selection, a statement which can not very well be 

 opposed, given the loose way in which the obsolete term unit 

 character is usually applied. But it was clear, that Dr. Castle 

 really believed the genes themselves to be capable of variability 

 in potency, quality and value, and we think it of the utmost im- 

 portance that in the review under discussion he has stated the 



