EVOLUTION 109 



shown beyond the vestige of doubt that the 

 germ cells are not affected in some such way 

 as that assumed for Proteus, and the observa- 

 tions themselves should be confirmed by other 

 workers. These experiments, like those on mu- 

 tilations, though they have yielded interesting 

 material, have not yet produced indubitable 

 evidence of the inheritance of acquired char- 

 acters. 



If such characters were really inherited, it 

 ought not to be difficult to show that the so- 

 matic cells of a given animal can exert a con- 

 siderable influence on the germ cells contained 

 within the body. Experimental attempts in this 

 direction have been made by the transplanta- 

 tion of ovaries. Magnus removed the ovaries 

 from a black rabbit and grafted into their places 

 those from an albino rabbit. The black rabbit 

 was then paired with a white male and gave 

 birth to two offspring, one white and the other 

 black. A similar experiment was then tried 

 by Guthrie on the hen and with similar re- 

 sults. Both these experiments were, however, 

 inconclusive, for the stock on which the tests 

 were made was not well known and its pu- 

 rity, therefore, was not established. Castle and 

 Phillips, in 1911, reported similar experiments 



