Abstract
THE tendency in any new character or modification to reappear in the offspring at the same age at which it first appeared in the parents or in one of the parents, is of so much importance in reference to the diversified characters proper to the larvæ of many animals at successive ages, that almost any fresh instance is worth putting on record. I have given many such instances under the term of “inheritance at corresponding ages.” No doubt the fact of variations being sometimes inherited at an earlier age than that at which they first appeared—a form of inheritance which has been called by some naturalists “accelerated inheritance”—is almost equally important, for, as was shown in the first edition of the “Origin of Species,” all the leading facts of embryology can be explained by these two forms of inheritance, combined with the fact of many variations arising at a somewhat late stage of life. A good instance of inheritance at a corresponding age has lately been communicated to me by Mr. J. P. Bishop of Perry, Wyoming, N.Y., United States:—The hair of a gentleman of American birth (whose name I suppress) began to turn grey when he was twenty years old, and in the course of four or five years became perfectly white. He is now seventy-five years old, and retains plenty of hair on his head. His wife had dark hair, which, at the age of seventy, was only sprinkled with grey. They had four children, all daughters, now grown to womanhood. The eldest daughter began to turn grey at about twenty, and her hair at thirty was perfectly white. A second daughter began to be grey at the same age, and her hair is now almost white. The two remaining daughters have not inherited the peculiarity. Two of the maternal aunts of the father of these children “began to turn grey at an early age, so that by middle life their hair was white.” Hence the gentleman in question spoke of the change of colour of his own hair as “a family peculiarity.”
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DARWIN, C. Inheritance . Nature 24, 257 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/024257a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/024257a0
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