4 Bulletin Wisconsin Natural History Society [Vol. 11, Nos. 1-2 
Dr. Graenicher told of the progress of the committee on the check-list 
of Wisconsin plants, and said that the third section of the tentative check- 
list was in preparation. In reference to this plant census, he emphasized 
the need of more cooperation between institutions having collections of 
Wisconsin plants. 
Mr. Scheiber and Drs. Graenicher and Barth discussed the possible con- 
nection of certain flies with the disease of infantile paralysis. 
The meeting then adjourned. 
Milwaukee, Wis., December 12, 1912. 
Regular meeting of the society. 
President Barth in the chair. Thirty persons present. Minutes of last 
section meeting read and approved. 
Mr. J. R. Heddle was elected secretary in place of Dr. Washburn, whose 
resignation took effect at the beginning of the summer recess. 
Mr. Ward presented for membership in the society, the names of Dr. 
Leon D. Peaslee and Mr. Cornell R. Smith, Public Museum, and of Dr. 
Arthur S. Pearse, Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin. These 
names, together with that of Mr. W. C. Kraatz, Public Museum, were 
referred to the Board of Directors for action. 
President Barth spoke about two bills that are to be put before the 
legislature: one, to increase the appropriation of the Wisconsin Geological 
and Natural History Survey; the other, to permit the more frequent pub- 
lication of the Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts 
and Letters. Mr. Russel then moved that the chair be empowered to 
appoint a committee of three to cooperate with the Wisconsin Academy 
in the passage of these bills. The motion was seconded and passed. The 
chair announced that the committee would be subsequently appointed. 
The lecture for the evening was given by Prof. L. J. Cole, Professor of 
Experimental Breeding at the University of Wisconsin, on the subject: 
“ Gregor Mendel and His Work.” 
1. The first part of the lecture was devoted to the personality of Mendel, 
his native town in Austria, and his life as student and investigator in the 
local monastery. Note the simplicity and strength of character of the 
man, his keenness of judgment, a true scientific spirit and devotion to 
scientific work, terminated only on his becoming abbot in the monastery. 
2. Mendel’s classic experiments and derived theories. His results were 
not given the amount of attention they more recently have received, due, 
not only to their publication in the proceedings of a local natural history 
society, but more especially to their appearance at about the same time 
Darwin’s work was beginning to absorb the attention of the whole scien- 
tific world'. Mendel died without realizing the true significance and the 
application of his results. 
3. Confirmation and extension of Mendel’s theories by later investiga- 
tors. Mendel came very near explaining the true cause of his results, by 
suggesting the presence in the organisms, of certain hypothetical bodies, 
which transmit the hereditary characters. It is not probable that he 
