_Professor of Anthropology, Naples._ The Mendelian laws find verification in man. Every race, whether a sub-species or a variety, has an hereditary possession of certain characters; a possession which is completely transmitted to the descendants, in whom is preserved the same germ plasm as in the progenitors. The researches of C. B. and G. Davenport seem to have proved the recessive character of albinism and its obedience to the Mendelian law. Hurst has presented figures which show that the inheritance of colour in the iris of the human eye obeys Mendelian laws. Davenport has established the order of dominance by the form of hair, which also obeys the Mendelian law. De Quatrefages, many years before the re-affirmation of Mendel's discoveries, wrote:-- "The union of individuals of different races involves a contest between their two natures--a contest of which the theatre is the field where the new being is organised. Now, this contest does not take place _en bloc_, so to speak, as has been generally admitted. Each of the characters of the two parents struggles on its own account against the corresponding character (its antagonist, as has just been said). When the hereditary energy is equal on both sides there necessarily ensues a kind of process of which the consequence is the fusion of the maternal and paternal characters in an intermediate character. If the energies are very unequal the hybrid inherits a character borrowed entirely from one of his parents; but this parent, conqueror on one point, may be conquered upon another. Hence, there results with the hybrid a _juxtaposition_ of characters derived from each of the types of which he is the child." Above all, I have wished to call attention to the so-called laws of dominance, because of their great importance. We may conclude that in the case of man the dominant characters are also the original ones. THE INHERITANCE OF FECUNDITY. (Abstract.) By Raymond Pearl, _Biologist, Maine Agricultural Experiment Station._ The purpose of this paper is to give an account (necessarily abbreviated, and without presentation of complete evidence) of the results of an investigation into the mode of inheritance of fecundity in the domestic fowl, and to point out some of the possible eugenic bearings of these results. It is shown that while the continued selection, over a period of years, of highly fecund females failed to bring about any change in average fecundity of the strain used, this character must nevertheless be inherited since pedigree lines have been isolated which uniformly breed true to definite degrees of fecundity. It is further shown that observed variations in actually realized fecundity (number of eggs laid) do not depend upon anatomical differences in respect to the number of visible oöcytes in the ovary. The differential factor on which the variations in fecundity depend must be primarily physiological.