Ethel M. Elderton 
07 
thought he traced some preponderance of maternal influence in the transmission 
of finger patterns but the value found for left first finger of father and son upsets 
this theory, and later work by Mr Howard Collins casts some doubt on the earlier 
results he had obtained which Galton quoted*. At the same time I thought it 
would be of interest to compare the finger-print of the mother with all her 
children irrespective of sex and of the father with all his children. 
The advisability of combining the sexes is discussed later in this paper ; it is 
certainly legitimate for the first finger of the left hand but I am doubtful whether 
it is for the first finger of the right hand. I give the values I obtained in 
Table II. 
TABLE II. 
Father 
Mother 
Uncorrected 
Coriected 
Uncorrected 
Corrected 
for groupinp; 
for grouping 
for grouping 
for groujiing 
Right first 
■261 
■297 
■357 
•405 
Left first, .. 
■289 
■332 
■338 
■383 
III both cases the value is higher for the mother than for the father ; the 
probable error of the maternal coefficients is of the order "020 and of the paternal 
'023 and of the difference •03, and from this we might infer that in the right first 
finger the difference was significant, but since in the right first finger I am very 
doubtful if I ought to have combined the sexes I think that we cannot assume on 
this data a preponderance of maternal influence in the inheritance of type of 
finger-print. A comparison of the results with those found for stature, span and 
forearmf shows a distinctly lower value for inheritance of finger-prints. 
TABLE III. 
Character 
Father and 
Motlier and 
Son 
Daughter 
Son 
Daughter 
Stature ... 
Span 
Forearm ... 
■514 + ^015 
■454 + -016 
■421 ±-017 
■510±-013 
■454f014 
■422 ±-015 
•494 ±-016 
•4.-)7±-016 
•406 ± -017 
■507f014 
■452± -Ol.-i 
•421 ± -015 
Mean 
■463 
■462 
■452 
■460 
* Finger-PrinU, p. 190. 
t "On the Laws of Inheritance in Man," by K. Pearson and A. Lee, Bioiiietrikti , Vol. ii. pp. '651 et 
seq. 1903. 
5— -2 
