The hereditary distribution of sex-limited characters has been by far the most frttitful source of experimental evidence concerning the inheritance of sex, though crosses between hermaphroditic and dioecious organisms have also given important data supporting the same conclusions.It was in fact a cross of the latter sort between Bryonia alba and B. dioica which led COR~E~S (1907) to the clear formulation of the genetic relationship between the sexes which has now been generally adopted, the one sex being recognized as homozygous, the other heterozygous, with respect to a sex-determiner which is inherited as a Mendelian gene. The first statement of this hypothesis seems to have been made by GEOFFREY S~[IT~ (1906) as a deduction from the effects of parasitic castration of the crab, Inachus, together with the discoveries of the cytologists that the sexes are in many cases characterized by chromosome differences which lead necessarily to the inference that, in these cases at least, the one sex is homogametic, the other heterogametic. S~H laid no special stress upon this hypothesis as a generally applicable ~endelian interpretation of the sexes, and as his statement was not based upon genetic experiments, it has been generally overlooked by geneticists.The greater value of sex-limited characters for the genetic study of the sexes, is due solely to the fact that such characters are relatively common, while the occurrence of hermaphrodites in sufficiently near relationship to dioecious species that crosses between them yield fertile offspring, is very rare. The fact that the F~ "hybrids between Bryonia dioica and B. alba are sterile, makes it impossible to go beyond the simple demonstration that when the cross is executed in the one direction a uniform progeny results, while a cross in the opposite direction Induktive Abstammungs-und Vererbungslehre. XII. 19