character[1]. In which of the two significations it appears in each separate case can only be determined by the following generation. As a parental character it must pass over unchanged to the whole of the offspring; as a hybrid-character, on the other hand, it must observe the same behaviour as in the first generation.
The Second Generation [Bred] from the Hybrids
Those forms which in the first generation maintain the recessive character do not further vary in the second generation as regards this character; they remain constant in their offspring.
It is otherwise with those which possess the dominant character in the first generation [bred from the hybrids]. Of these two-thirds yield offspring which display the dominant and recessive characters in the proportion of 3 to 1, and thereby show exactly the same ratio as the hybrid forms, while only one-third remains with the dominant character constant.
The separate experiments yielded the following results:— Expt. 1.—Among 565 plants which were raised from round seeds of the first generation, 193 yielded round seeds only, and remained therefore constant in this character; 372, however, gave both round and angular seeds, in the proportion of 3 to 1. The number of the hybrids, therefore, as compared with the constants is 1⋅93 to 1.
Expt. 2.—Of 519 plants which were raised from seeds whose albumen was of yellow colour in the first generation, 166 yielded exclusively yellow, while 353 yielded yellow
- ↑ [This paragraph presents the view of the hybrid-character as something incidental to the hybrid, and not "transmitted" to it—a true and fundamental conception here expressed probably for the first time.]
