ADAPTATION AND INHERITANCE KAMMERER. 427 



nothing of the lower plants or aniinals, the bacteria, yeast, and smut 

 fungi, the algse, and flagellates. The characters wliich could be 

 changed or newly formed in the higher organisms include size, form, 

 color, developmental stages, habits of locomotion, food, reproduction, 

 and nidification. Of all these groups of acquired changes, I can give 

 onl}^ one or two examples. In many instances several of the men- 

 tioned groups of variations are combined in a shigle case, so that in 

 spite of all the necessary concentration, quite a comprehensive survey 

 of the held wUl result. 



If we begm with a case which m a sense is not one of tnie trans- 

 mission, for m this it is a foreign body, not a part of the animal 

 which is transmittetl by the parent to the offsjjrmg. Sitowski fed 

 the caterpillars of a moth (T'meola hisellieUa) with an anihne dye, 

 "Sudan red No. 111." The colored caterpillar developed mto a 

 complete moth, and these moth deposited colored eggs (fig. 65), from 

 which colored caterpillars emerged; normally the eggs and caterpil- 

 lars are white (fig. Qb). Similar results were obtained by Gage with 

 guinea pigs and by Riddle with cliickens. These experunents are 

 of interest because they show how easily the germ plasm is reached. 

 In this case it was accomplished by an external chemical factor 

 through the roundabout way of the somaplasm. In the body the 

 fats are especially colored by the sudan red and m the egg the fatty 

 substances which are attacked by it. We may consider the colormg 

 of the Uving tissue (vital stainmg) comparable to the immigration 

 of green algae mto the egg of the green fresh-water polyp {Hydra 

 viridis). The green color of this polyp is due to microscopic low 

 plants (algae), which live in the cells of the polyp and even infest the 

 maturing egg. M. Nussbaum has called this a transmission of an 

 acquired character, for it stands to reason that this association with 

 the alga? must have been acquired somewhere. 



If we consider size, then we find a ready example which also em- 

 braces changes hi color and food habit — the caterpillar of the gypsy 

 moth Lymaniia s. Ocneria dispar — m which the males are strongly 

 differentiated from the females. These caterpillars feed naturally 

 upon the loaves of the oak and fruit trees. Pictet fed them upon the 

 hard leaves of the wahiut. At first they fed poorly, but the followmg 

 generation fed upon the nut leaves without hesitation. The resultmg 

 generation of moth are dwarfed and ])aler m both sexes. Traces 

 of this are still recognizable after two generations, even when they 

 have been returned to normal food. On the other hand, if one feeds 

 two consecutive generations with the abnormal food, they return to 

 the normal form, evidentl}^ because the cateri)Lllar has learned to 

 digest the strange food as well as that to which it was formerly 

 accustomed. Feeduig with the tender Esparsctto ])roduces giant 

 forms and saturated color, as well as gray, instead of yellow, breast 



