Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1906-07-05
POWER OF HEREDITY.

sociate professor of zoology at the
University of Chicago for the past four
years. is at the head of both biological
laboratories at Cold Spring Harbor.
In his report of the first years work
Prof. Davenport states that the insti-
tution's first efforts have been directed
to studies of heredity, which, he de-
clares, in spite of their Importance
for evolution, have been relatively
neglected. To deal with this subject
the laboratory has planned work,
which it will undertake in coopera-
ton with others. on all the main
groups of animals and plants.
Following this programme, two and
half acres of laboratory land have
been devoted to the rearing of 'pedi-
greed plants" whose welfare has been
watched by Drs. Britton and Mac
Dougal, of the New York Botanical
Garden, as well as by the botanist of
the laboratory, DR.. Shull. Eighty-one
different species of plants were chosen
and kept under careful observation,
several showing notable variations.
What the laboratory is doing with
] plants it is doing also with insects.
In fact, Cold Spring Harbor just now
might be called an insect paradise,
and applications for entrance to the
laboratory from those minute denizens
of the forest should be numerous.
Besides special experiments that are
being made at the laboratory with fish
and snails, the principal Investigations
have been confined so far to domesti-
Gated animals-fowl, duck, pigeons,
canary birds, goldfnch, goats, sheep,
cattle and the plain, everyday "harm-
less. necessary cat
The two goats connected with the
laboratory are Irish, and are decorated
with certain peculiar "wattles" on the
neck. The interest attached to these
wattles, according to Prof Davenport,
depends on the fact that the are typ
zeal abnormalities and subserve no
function They have been repeatedly
observed in man. Now, the question
is, with these two Irish goats at the
laboratory, How will the wattles ap-
pear in their descendants? The in
teresting pair have had four offspring
since their arrival at the laboratory,
some with wattles, some without, and
Prof Davenport calculates that with
greater numbers he should get three
times as many waited as non-wattled
offspring"
The same kind of experiment is be-
ing conducted with the five sheep at
the laboratory and with a pair of Jer-
sey and Holstein cattle, from which
Prof Davenport hopes to improve the
quality of the Holstein milk. The
five cats with which the laboratory
started have already had 13 kittens,
and the experiments regarding them
are thus described by Prof. Davenport:
eff characteristics are for the most
part inherited entire and can be COM
bined in various ways, like atoms in
chemistry, it should be possible to OBJ
tain anv desired combination. At the
beginning of the year l set myself
the task of producing a white, blue
eyed deaf long-haired, tailless, poly
dactyl cat. My parental stock con-
sists of: No. 1, black Manx male
(tailless); No. 2, black, tailed, poly
dactyl female; No. 8, female Maltese
polydactyl: No. 4, white blue-eyed,
deaf, polydactyl female; No. 5, black
and yellow polydactyl female.
AS a result l obtained a great va
riety of combinations of characteris-
| tics"