82 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. L 



cent, stillborn litters and 62 per cent, living litters. Little 

 less than half of the living young died soon after birth, 

 in all 43, nine of which, or more than one in five, 21 per 

 cent., were paralyzed or deformed; the figures in Plates 

 I and II illustrate the paralytic conditions. Fifty-two of 

 the offspring survived, three with deformed eyes, one 

 with one eyeball completely absent, monster monophthal- 

 micum asymmetricum (Fig. 2, 307 $), and almost all of 

 the 52 are very nervous, excitable animals which when 

 bred give rise to deformed or highly degenerate offspring. 



The offspring from the Fj animals mated in any com- 

 bination are generally far below the normal in power to 

 survive and in quality of structure. When compared 

 with the offspring from directly alcoholized parents, the 

 offspring from the F x combinations show an equally bad 

 mortality record and a very much higher proportion of 

 paralyzed and deformed individuals. The 95 matings 

 inter se of F x animals demonstrate conclusively that such 

 individuals carry defective or abnormal germ cells which 

 give rise to defective developmental products. These de- 

 generate F 2 offspring owe their subnormal condition to 

 the effects of the action of the alcohol treatment upon the 

 germ cells of their grandparents which have been trans- 

 mitted to them through their parents. In other words, 

 the carriers of hereditary qualities have been modified 

 in the first parental generation, and the effects of this 

 modification are expressed in their offspring F 1? and also 

 in their grandchildren, the F 2 generation. 



The next line of the table, the tenth, indicates further 

 how the effects of the original modification are trans- 

 mitted to the great grandchildren or through three gen- 

 erations since the injury. Forty-eight inter se matings 

 of F 2 animals gave the results here shown. Almost 42 

 per cent, of the matings gave negative results or early 

 abortions, the poorest record in this respect shown in the 

 entire table. About 15 per cent, of such matings gave 

 stillborn litters, 7 in 48 matings, which is remarkably 

 high when compared with any of the above combinations. 



