Thumb-Fingered Family.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 13 April 1911, Page 4

Thumb-Fingered Family.

MENDEL'S LAW TN HUMAN INHERITANCE. If we wished at the present moment to produce a race of men who had' two bones instead of three in all their lingers and toes it could be done. The contention is made good by an eminent doctor and man of science writing in the new monthly magazine, the -Mendel Journal. Indeed, that wonderful law -of heredity, discovered yeans ago by Mendel, is disclosing so many secrets of character in plants nnd animals that it demands a special magazine to aid and popularise the study of it. The practical bearing of this law is shown by the fact that all the groat sweet-pea growers, some of the best producers of new wheats, and some poultry kee-pers are working on Mendel's lines. The second volume of the magazine contains the above astonishing example of the law as displayed in the in heritance of man. Mr Drinkwat'-T. M.D., has traced the history of a family for seven generations from an ancestor who was remarkable for the abnormality known as "thumb-fin-gerness" ; "that is, she had only two instead of three bones in all her fingers and toes. This peculiarity hns been inherited through the six gbnstrictly in accordance with the law. On the one hand the- normal children have never produced abnormal offspring; on the other hand the creation of a race who a ; l possessed shortened fingers and tots could be positively ensured by selected marriages of cousins. Two other writers throw ! : ght on the inheritance of colour if. horses and cats. Tt is quite prjvoci for example, in racehorses ih it chestnuts always have chestnut progp.i y. and that hays crossed by chestnuts always produce bays. In regaivl to the cats light is thrown on tho .|iic cr fact that in one variety the males a;e nearly always red aiul the 'abbies tortoise-shell. The history of the cat is al.-o tra. kec! out by inference from the extreme difficulty experienced I y cat fanciers in breeding out str'pe.v aiid spots, the marks of those more di.v tinguished felines the tiger and ? 'ip leopard.