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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLV 



Davenport and Davenport 3 have apparently overlooked 

 the fact that the mother rather than the father seems to 

 favor dominance in the American families in which the 

 hair form is recorded by them. When the mother has 

 straight hair in a cross of curly and straight, the number 

 of children is 4 curly to 24 straight, but when the mother 

 has curly hair in a similar cross, the number of children 

 is 10 curly to 22 straight. It may be significant that in 

 America, where curly hair is dominant and straight reces- 

 sive, the female parent is associated with dominance, 

 whereas in the Philippines, where straight hair is domi- 

 nant and curly recessive, the male parent is associated 

 with the dominant hair form. 



It is to be regretted that no observations as to the sex 

 of the children were made by either Davenport and 

 Davenport or Mendoza and Ramirez, because if that had 

 been done the repulsion of maleness or femaleness to one 

 form of hair or another might have been determined, in 

 view of similar conditions that exist in the currant moth 

 and in canaries. 4 It appears, however, that femaleness 

 exerts a repelling influence upon the dominant character 

 among Filipinos but maleness exerts the same influence 

 among Americans. 



Returning to the cross of straight and wavy hair, it is 

 to be noted that if straight hair is duplex and wavy hair 

 simplex, then the supposition is that half the offspring 

 shall have straight hair and half wavy hair, and there 

 shall be none with curly hair. But if straight and wavy 

 hair represent two different stages of hair-form either of 

 which may be epi static to curlv, then a certain proportion 

 (usually more than 25 per cent.) of the offspring should 

 have curly hair. Actually there are many children with 



'"Mendelism and Sex," by C. C. Hurst, pp. 1-34, an address delivered 

 to the Mendel Society, March 29, 1909. 



5 Cf. Davenport and Davenport, "Skin Pigmentation in Man," The 



