STRANGE LAW OF HEREDITY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXII, Issue 8941, 5 October 1907, Page 1

STRANGE LAW OF HEREDITY.

In the village of Burbage, Leicestershire, recently, a group of mem- I bers of the British Association | (which is holding its annual meeting at Leicester) was drawn up in j line along one side of a narrow lane. | On the other were marched by and halted at intervals one hundred or so schoolchildren, distinguished with various badges. Ardent investigators would now and again advance from the lino of scientists, halt a group of children, and inspect with magnifying glasses at close quarters their eyes. The British Association is asking the public to co-operate in hunting down a secret, of which some fascinating hints have just been discovered. The difficulty _of investigation is no more than noting down the colour of the eyes in the family. In the light of science there are oulv two sorts of eye—blue and not blue. It is a fact that all eyes are blue or blue-grey in ground, but a great many have some other pigment in front of the iris. Hence appears a strange law of heredity, it is asserted that where both parents have blue eyes all the children have blue eyes, where both parents have brown eyes all the children have brown eves: but it is where the parents differ that this alleged law of heredity is most surprising. In this case brown eyes are said to be dominant and blue eyes recessive, so that of the children of mixed parents three of every four will have brown eyes and one blue.