Abstracts. 301 



body weight for a given age became increasingly large as the 

 age advanced. In the case of the female chickens there was no 

 substantial difference in the rate of growth in the three lots 

 until after an age of 150 days was passed. During the next 25 

 days the controls grew faster than the chicks from treated par- 

 ents. At and after 200 days of age, however, the offspring of 

 treated parents (one and both) shovved a higher mean body 

 weight than the controls. At all ages in the case of the male 

 chicks, and in all ages but two (12.5 and 19.5 days) in the case 

 of the female chicks, the mean body weight of the offspring 

 having both parents alcoholic was higher than that of the off- 

 spring having one parent only, the father, alcoholic. 



6. The proportion of abnormal chicks produced from 

 treated parents was no greater than that produced from un- 

 treated parents. 



7. The normal Mendelian inheritance was in no way af- 

 fected by the treatment of the parents, so far as concerns any 

 of the numerous characters observed and tested. This state- 

 ment applies only to phenomena of dominance, recessiveness 

 and sex linkage. Other Mendelian phenomena have not as yet 

 been tested in these experiments. 



8. There was no evidence from these experiments that' 

 the treatment of individual fowls, whether male or female, with 

 either ethyl alcohol, methyl alcohol, or ether, had any deleterious 

 effect upon those germ cells which formed zygotes. The treat- 

 ment rendered many germ cells incapable of forming zygotes 

 at all, but those which did form zygotes had plainly not been 

 injured in any way. Further no specific germinal changes have 

 been induced by the treatment, at least so far as concerns those 

 germ cells which produced zygotes. 



It is suggested that these results, as well as the results of 

 earlier workers, may be most satisfactorily accounted for on the 

 hypothesis that alcohol and similar substance act as selective 

 agents upon the germ cells of treated animals. The essential 

 points in such an hypothesis may be put in the following way. 



a. Assume that the relative vigor, or resisting power of 

 germ cells varies or grades continuously from a low degree to 

 a high degree and further assume that the absolute vigor of 

 the whole population of germ cells, measured by the mean let 

 us say, is different for different species. 



