Abstract
STUDENTS of heredity have followed with the greatest interest Dr. L. Doncaster's experimental and cytological work with the Magpie Moth (Abraxas grossulariata). In the last number of the Journal of Genetics (vol. iv, 1914, pp. 1-21, plates i–iii) he brings forward further interesting results on the relations between chromosomes, sex-limited transmission, and sex-determination in that insect. He confirms the observation that in a strain of Abraxas, which in each generation produces families consisting entirely of females, the oogonia have only fifty-five chromosomes instead of the fifty-six normal to the species. It is thus established that the females are here heterozygous as regards sex-character, whereas in many insects the males are known to be heterozygous. Dr. Doncaster found that one female of this remarkable strain carried fifty-six chromosomes, while other females of the same brood had clearly fifty-five. “In the same brood there was failure of sex-limited inheritance of the grossulariata character [as contrasted with the factor producing the variety lacticolor] in two cases, in such a way that the grossulariata mother transmitted this character to two of her daughters (out of a total of sixteen) instead of, as normally happens, only to her sons. It is suggested that this may be correlated with the extra chromosome found in one female of this family, the grossulariata-bearing chromosome having become separated abnormally from the sex-chromosome.”
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Papers on Heredity . Nature 94, 213 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/094213a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/094213a0