These large classes of exceptions—to go no further—indicate that, as we might in any case expect, the principle is not of universal application, and will need various modifications if it 1s to be extended to more complex cases of inheritance of varietal characters. No more useful work can be imagined than a systematic determination of the precise "law of heredity" in numbers of particular cases.
Until lately the work which Galton accomplished stood almost alone in this field, but quite recently remarkable additions to our knowledge of these questions have been made. In the year 1900 Professor de Vries published a brief account[1] of experiments which he has for several years been carrying on, giving results of the highest value.
The description is very short, and there are several points as to which more precise information is necessary both as to details of procedure and as to statement of results. Nevertheless it is impossible to doubt that the work as a whole constitutes a marked step forward, and the full publication which is promised will be awaited with great interest.
The work relates to the course of heredity in cases where definite varieties differing from each other in some one definite character are crossed together. The cases are ail examples of discontinuous variation: that is to say, cases In which actual intermediates between the parent forms are not usually produced on crossing[2]. It is shown that the subsequent posterity obtained by self-fertilising these cross-breds or hybrids, or by breeding them with each other, break up into the original parent forms according to fixed numerical rule.
