This series begins with selected parents ranging in grade from -1.25
to -1.87. Their average, if each pair is weighted in proportion to the
number of its offspring, is -1.46. The offspring (Table 16), like the
offspring of the original plus selections, regress toward grade 0. They
range in grade from +0.25 to -2.00, their mean being -1.00. The total
number of offspring recorded in this generation is only 55, this being
too small to warrant the calculation of a correlation coefficient.
Generation 2 (Table 17) is somewhat larger, but still too small to make
statistical constants based upon it of much consequence. The offspring
show substantially the same range of variation as in the previous
generation, but with a slightly higher average (-1.07). The coefficient
of correlation (-0.03) is negative, but too small to be significant. The
record of the next eleven generations will be found summarized in Tables
18 to 28, or in more condensed form in Tables 29 and 30. Generation 13
(Table 28) is still incomplete.
The mean of the parents steadily rises from -1.56 in generation 3
to -2.50 in generation 13. The mean of the offspring rises by like
increments from -1.18 in generation 3 to -2.39 in generation 13. There
is throughout these generations a positive correlation between parents
and offspring. This amounts on the average to 0.137 as compared with
0.193 observed in the plus selection series. The absolute change in
amount of pigmentation is no doubt less in the minus selection than in
the plus selection series, but if the change were recorded as percentage
decrease of pigmentation in one case and percentage increase in the
other, the change indicated would probably be as great in one as in the
other.
In the minus as in the plus series we observe:
(1) The character of the offspring varies with that of the parents;
high-grade parents have high-grade offspring and _vice versa_.
(2) The variability of the race (as indicated by the standard deviation)
undergoes some reduction and the limits of variation, both upper and
lower, are displaced in the direction of the selection.
(3) The regression from a new and extreme class of parents is at first
large, but decreases as the selection is repeated and finally disappears
altogether when the average of the race becomes equal to the particular
grade under discussion.