Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/428

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
424
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY
Fig. 5. A black female Guinea-pig and her Young.
Fig. 6. An Albino Guinea-pig, father cf black young, like those seen in Fig. 5.

of this generation, one by one, with albinos, we find that on the average two out of three of them will produce white offspring as well as black ones, while the third one produces only black offspring.

The scientific law which governs the inheritance of albinism, and of other characters transmitted in a similar fashion, is known as Mendel's law. It applies, apparently, to all cases of color-inheritance, as well as to the inheritance of characters of many other sorts. Through its operation new combinations of the peculiar characters of individuals or of races can be obtained in the course of one or two generations. Thus when a guinea-pig showing the two coat-characters seen in Fig. 9, dark and smooth coat, is mated with one showing the combination, white and rough, Fig. 10, young are produced showing a wholly new combination, dark and rough, Fig. 11. And if these young are at maturity bred together, a fourth combination, white and smooth, appears among their young, the grandchildren. See Fig. 12. Other grandchildren manifest the combinations seen, respectively, in the parents and in the grandparents. By selection any one of these combinations may be obtained in a pure race.

Oftentimes a new combination of characters obtained through