Selection for an invariant Character, Vibrissa Number, in the House Mouse III. Correlated Responses

Abstract

Selection for increased and decreased total number of secondary vibrissae has been practised on the mutant mice of a stock in which the tabby gene is segregating. Five separate groups of vibrissae contribute to the total number and differences were found in the response of individual groups of vibrissae to selection. These differences occur both in the main selection experiment and in subsidiary experi-ments based on rare non-tabby mice with abnormal scores which occur with very low frequency in ordinary mouse stocks.