A key figure in the field of evolutionary biology, William Bateson (1861 1926) revived Mendelian methods of analysis to develop Darwin's theory of evolution, thereby pioneering the study of genetics. In these lectures, published at Yale in 1913, Bateson systematically chronicles the era's conflicting and developing theories on taxonomy, speciation, variation and hybridisation, and includes his own thoughts on continuous and discontinuous variation and its causes. Drawing on the comparative physiology and anatomy of species that he knew from his wide experience, citing detailed examples from...