34 METABOLISM OF ORGANIC AND INORGANIC PHOSPHORUS. 



PRELIMINARY FEEDING PERIOD. 



The results recorded in Table I are especially valuable in view of 

 the fact that they cover a period of practically one hundred days. 

 During this time an attempt was made to mate the rabbits, each one 

 being removed from her cage every four days at 5 o'clock and placed 

 in a large box with a male rabbit and allowed to remain there until 

 the next morning at 9 o'clock. This .,was repeated fifteen or 

 twenty times in each case. Consequently some loss of feces and 

 urine must have resulted, which loss in the course of an experiment 

 extending over one hundred days would be practically uniform in 

 the case of each pah- of rabbits. Such a loss would naturally tend to 

 give somewhat larger apparent nitrogen and phosphoric acid bal- 

 ances. The rabbits had always eaten the food provided for them 

 before being removed from then* cages. 



Throughout this work the rabbits fed organic phosphorus are given 

 the numbers 1 and 2, and those fed inorganic phosphorus the num- 

 bers 3 and 4. 



The weight of the rabbits remained constant in the case of Nos. 

 1 and 4, while in the case of No. 2 a slight average loss of weight 

 resulted and No. 3 showed a gain in weight. 



TABLE I. Nitrogen and phosphorus metabolism Preliminary period. 



No. 1. RABBIT FED ORGANIC PHOSPHORUS. 



1.42 grams of organic phosphorus per period were intimately mixed with the food. 



