Similar results were found in the mutant type called reduplicated legs, which is a sex-linked recessive character that appears best when the cultures are kept at about 10° C. As Miss M. A. Hoge has shown, this character then becomes realized in nearly all of the flies that have the proper constitution, but not in flies of normal constitution placed in the same environment. Here the effect is produced by cold.
SEXUAL POLYMORPHISM.
Outside the primary and secondary sexual differences between the male and the female, there is a considerable number of species of animals with more than one kind of female or male. Darwin and his followers have tried to explain such cases on the grounds that more than one kind of female (or male) might arise through natural selection, in consequence of some individuals mimicking a protected species. It is needless to point out here how involved and intricate such a process would be, because the mutation theory has cut the Gordian knot and given a simpler solution of the origin of such diandromorphic and digynomorphic conditions.
In Drosophila a mutant, eosin eye-color, appeared in which the female has darker eyes than the male. If such stock is crossed with cherry (another sex-linked recessive mutant, allelomorphic to eosin) the females in the F2 generation are alike (for the pure eosin and the eosin-cherry compound are not separable), but the cherry males and the eosin males are quite different in appearance. Here we have a simulation, at least, of a diandromorphic species. Such a group perpetuates itself, giving one type of female (inasmuch as eosin and cherry females are very closely similar) and two types of males, only one of which is like the females. A population of this kind is very directly comparable to certain polymorphic types that occur in nature. In Colias philodice there is one type of male, yellow, and two types of females, yellow and
white. In Colias eurydice the male is orange and the females are orange or white. In Papilio turnus the male is yellow and the females either yellow or black. Those cases are directly comparable to an eosin-cherry population, except that in Lepidoptera the female is heterozygous for the sex differential, in Diptera the male.
Since in Drosophila the results are explicable on a sex-linked basis, a similar explanation may apply to polymorphism in butterflies. By suitable combinations of eosin and cherry most of the cases of polymorphism in butterflies may be simulated. To simulate the more complex cases, such as that of Papilio polytes and memnon, another allelomorph like eosin would have to be introduced. A population of mixed cherry and white would give three somatic types of females (cherry, cherry-white, and white) and two of males (cherry and white).
FERTILITY AND STERILITY IN THE MUTANTS.
Aside from the decrease in fertility that occurs in certain stocks (a question that need not be treated here), there are among the types described in the text two cases that call for special comment. When the mutant type called "rudimentary" was first discovered, it was found that the females were sterile but the males were fully fertile. Later work has revealed the nature of the sterility of the female. The ovaries are present and in the young flies appear normal, but while in the normal flies the eggs in the posterior portion enlarge rapidly during the first few days after hatching, in the rudimentary females only a very few (about 15) eggs enlarge. The other eggs in the ovary remain at a lower stage of their development. Rarely the female lays a few eggs; when she does so some of the eggs hatch, and if she has been mated to a rudimentary male, the offspring are rudimentary females and males. The rudimentary females mate in the normal time with rudimentary or with normal males, and their sexual behavior is normal. Their sterility is therefore due to the failure of the eggs to develop properly. Whether in addition to this there is some incompatibility between the sperm and the eggs of this type (as supposed to be the case at one time) is not conclusively disproved, but is not probable from the evidence now available.
In the mutant called "fused" the females are sterile both with wild males and with males from their own stock. An examination of the ovaries of these females, made by Mr. C. McEwen, shows clearly that there are fewer than the normal number of mature eggs, recalling the case of rudimentary.
It should be noticed that there is no apparent relation between the sterility of these two types and the occurrence of the mutation in the X chromosome, because other mutations in the X do not cause sterility, and there is sterility in other mutant types that are due to factors in other chromosomes.