Mendelian Characters in Plauts, Animals and Man. 



by Cc C. Hurst, 



Director of the Burbage Experiment Station (England). 



The year 1866 marks an epoch in the history of Evolution. 

 In that year Mendel published in this journal his classical 

 memoir on heredity. More than a quarter of a Century elapsed 

 ere MendePs remarkable contribution attracted the attention of 

 the scientific world, and in the meantime the great man passed 

 away unknown to the world of science. The simultaneous disco- 

 very of MendeFs memoir by de Vries, Correns and Tschermak, 

 early in the year 1900, is one of the romances of Science. 



Since 1900, MendePs fame has increased by leaps and 

 bounds until at the present moment the cult of Mendelism is 

 spread far and wide over the civilized world. When one con- 

 siders that the Mendelian principles of heredity were based on 

 a few simple experiments with the common garden pea, this 

 rapid development is indeed remarkable. The living power aod 

 truth of Mendelism can only be due to the fact that the experi- 

 ments of Mendel, simple though they be, were conceived, com- 

 pleted, and interpreted by a master mind. 



MendePs great discovery was the reality of segregation. 

 Other ob Servers had noted the phenomenon of Segregation in 

 both plants and animals, but Mendel was the first to perceive 

 its reality, and to realise its true meaning. 



While others were content to regard segregation merely as 

 irregulär Variation, Mendel perceived that segregation implied 

 a regulär mode of inheritance that was not only qualitative but 

 quantitative, and the demonstration of the Mendelian ratios led 

 naturally to MendePs conception of differential characters. 



In his experiments with garden peas Mendel found seven 

 pairs of differential characters, viz : — Rounded and wrinkled seeds, 

 yellow and green cotyledons, coloured and white seed coats, 

 inflated and constricted seed-pods, distributed and bunched nowers, 



