54 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLVI1 



Six of the fifteen children of Mr. and Mrs. S. A., three 

 normal and three spotted, married normal negro mates 

 and have had from two to four children each. The nor- 

 mals have had only normal children, in all seven. The 

 spotted ones have had nine spotted and two normal 

 children. 



The normal children of Mr. and Mrs. S. A. who mar- 

 ried consisted of two daughters and one son ; the spotted 

 ones consisted of two sons and one daughter. There is 

 evidently no sex-limitation in the transmission of the 

 spotted pattern, which behaves consistently as a simple 

 Mendelian dominant character, the only peculiarity of 

 the case being the excess of spotted grandchildren over 

 the expected one half. But this quite probably is a chance 

 deviation due to the small numbers under consideration, 

 or to failure to secure as complete a report of the un- 

 spotted as of the spotted grandchildren. 



The descendants of Mr. and Mrs. S. A. are now widely 

 scattered through the United States and Europe, certain 

 of the spotted ones being connected with "museums." 

 Their peculiarity is therefore an economic asset and not 

 likely to interfere with their racial increase. The indi- 

 viduals thus far produced arc clearly from their parent- 

 age all heterozygous for the spotted character, which 

 they transmit in half only of their germ-cells. If in the 

 course of time two spotted individuals of this race, not 

 closely related, should marry each other, we might on 

 Mendelian principles expect the production of a new type 

 of individual, one homozygous in spotting, which would 

 transmit the character in all its germ-cells. What the 

 somatic character of such au individual would be we can 

 at present only conjecture. Our experience with the 

 domesticated animals leads us to think that it certainly 

 would not be an albino with pink eyes and unpigmented 

 or faintly pigmented skin, since true albinism is genet- 

 ically entirely distinct from spotting with white and is 

 recessive in heredity whereas tins character is dominant. 

 More likely it would resemble "black-eyed whites" such 



