Abstract
Significant sex and strain differences in correlation of bone, body and skeletal weights show significant localized effects of sex and strain and a combination of both. Individually they seem to lack biological meaning. However, when considered in relation to the ponderal correlations, of which they are a part, they fall into place at the distal ends of a graded linear correlation series, both within and between limbs; and similarly between mandible and sacrum, respectively, with each bone of both limbs. The pattern of these gradients reveals a linear decline in correlation of bones with distance (rule of neighborhood, Karl Pearson) in most cases, but the exceptions are such as can be related to the functions in which they cooperate. In this way they demonstrate at least two major unifying genetic influences. One associates sex and strain with locomotion and the other with the incipient upright investigative posture of the Lagomorphs (including the rabbit). The expected effect of sex on the pelvis is apparently not expressed by these ponderal measurements. The manner in which this correlation approach, based on well established genetic growth differences, converges with the phylogenetic and ontogenetic concepts of normal and abnormal growth of bone in limbs and cranioβfacial development suggests that a combination of correlation and epigenetic analysis would be helpful in establishing a sound genetic background for the newer biomechanic, functional matrix and architectonic approaches.