200 Tests with Precipitins 



reactions all told, 100 / reacted. Two Phalangeridae bloods gave no 

 reactions. Of the Polyprotodontia bloods one of Dasyuridae gave x and 

 one out of 6 of Didelphyidae gave a faint clouding. The majority of 

 the last gave a negative result, perhaps for the reason that they were 

 not tested until my antiserum had grown still weaker than it was at 

 the start. It is true that some x reactions are noted amongst other 

 mammalia, but their number is very small if their percentage is 

 reckoned. The Didelphis blood which showed a faint clouding, was 

 the only one, outside that of other Marsupialia, which reacted at all in 

 a long series of bloods tested on one day, the faint clouding in this case 

 was therefore certainly suggestive. These tests will however have to be 

 repeated with stronger antisera. 



VIII. Antisera for bloods and egg-whites of Aves. 



A. Tests with Antisera for Avian Bloods. 

 (1) Anti-fowl serum. 



Anti-fowl serum was first obtained by Bordet (in. 1899) by treating 

 a rabbit intraperitoneally with defibrinated fowl's blood. He observed 

 that the rabbit's serum acquired agglutinating and haemolyzing, as well 

 as precipitating, power for fowl and pigeon blood. As in Tchistovitch's 

 experiments with eel serum, the precipitum Bordet obtained was 

 soluble in dilute alkaline solutions. Nolf (v. 1900) obtained this 

 antiserum by injecting fowl serum, but not when he injected the blood 

 corpuscles. Uhlenhuth (15, x. 1900, p. 735) obtained anti-fowl serum 

 in the same manner as Bordet. He found it to precipitate solutions of 

 fowl blood, but not those of the pigeon, horse, donkey, ox and sheep. 

 Evidently his antiserum was weak, otherwise it would have acted on 

 pigeon blood. In my paper of 20, 1. 1902, 1 reported having tested 250 

 bloods with anti-fowl serum. Amongst birds the results were different 

 to those I had obtained with anti-mammalian sera amongst mammals, 

 the reactions in the latter case being mostly restricted to groups of 

 closely related animals. "Anti-fowl serum was found to produce a 

 reaction not only with solutions of fowl blood, and that of the closely 

 related pheasant, turkey, etc., but also with the bloods of widely 

 divergent species, such as the parrot, various species of duck, the wood- 

 cock, sheathbill, heron, eagle, owl, condor, pigeon, a number of small 

 Passerines, and American rhea. A marked clouding was moreover 

 produced in the blood of the swallow, rook, landrail, stork, swan and 



