184 
Miscellanea 
VI. Professor Ziegler and Galton's Law of Ancestral Inheritance. 
In the published account (Jena, 1905) of the lecture on "Die Vererbungslehre in der 
Biologie " delivered by Professor Ziegler before the "xxii Congress fiir innere Medizin" the 
following footnote occurs : 
" Da die grosselterlichen Anteile bei den einzelnen Enkeln nicht gleichiuassig sind, so kann 
auch das von Galton formulierte Vercrbungsgesetz nicht richtig sein. Es lautet so : Die 
Vcranlagung eines Kindes sotzt sich in folgende Weise aus den Vererbungsanlagen seiner 
Vorfiihren zusammen ; von den Eltern 50 prozent, von den Grosseltern 25 prozent, von 
den Urgrosseltern 25 prozent u.s.vs^. 
F. Galton, Natural Inheritance, London, Macmillan, 1889. 
Ders., The average Contribution of each several Ancestor to the total Heritage of the 
Oflspring. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. lxi. pp. 401 — 413, 1897." 
If Professor Ziegler had read with understanding even the title of the second of the two 
works that he mentions, he would have seen that the Law of Ancestral Inheritance formulated 
by Galton makes no statement whatsoever concerning the relative shares of each several ancestor 
in any single case. Thus the question as to whether all the grandchildren of one particular 
grandparent receive the same or different contributions from him towards their total heritage 
has no bearing whatsoever on this law. 
It is unnecessary in the jjages of Biometrika to dwell further on this point, but perhaps one 
may be permitted to express some surprise that a man of Professor Ziegler's standing, in 
a lecture on heredity, in which space is found to enlarge on unproved and unproveable theories 
concerning chromasomes, should relegate to a footnote, and there completely misrepresent, such 
an important contribution to the subject as Galton's Law of Ancestral Inheritance. 
EDGAR SCHUSTER. 
VII. Variazione ed Omotiposi nelle infiorescenze di Cichorium 
Intybus L. 
Dal De FERNANDO DE HELGUERO, Roma. 
Nella presente nota si studia la Variazione del numero dei fiori nelle infiorescenze di 
Cichorium Intybus L. e la Omotiposi, cmh la correlazione esistente fra le infiorescenze della 
stessa pianta. 
II materiale consta di 1000 infiorescenze raccolte durante il nieso di Agosto 1905 a S. Leucio 
(Provincia di Caserta, Italia), appartenenti a 624 piante diverse. Questo materiale forma oggetto 
di due studi distinti, il primo riguardante la Variazione del carattere in esame, il secondo la 
Omotiposi. 
1 . Variazione. 
Le 1000 infiorescenze sono state divise in tre gruppi a seconda che la pianta che le portava 
presentava o no altre infiorescenze. II primo gruppo riguarda piante con una sola infiorescenza, 
