No. 591] TRANSMISSION OF DEGENERACY 



165 



Aphids (Morgan, '09), which might lead one to believe 

 that the two classes of spermatids or finally spermatozoa 

 are never quite equally active or vigorous. This differ- 

 ence may vary from apparent equality in most higher 

 animals to cases such as the parthenogenetic Phyllox- 

 erans and Aphids, in which one class of spermatids are 

 actually degenerate and non-functional. 



In this connection an experiment performed with a 

 quite different problem in view by Cole and Davis ( '14) 

 with alcoholized rabbits is suggestive. They found that 

 when two male rabbits were mated with a female super- 

 fetation occurred in most cases so that part of the result- 

 ing litter of young were sired by one male and part by 

 the other. The two males differed in their ability, so 

 that one more often sired the majority of young of a given 

 litter and in the total number of competition matings sired 

 the greater number of young. When this male with the 

 fertilizing advantage was treated for a short period of 

 time, a month or more, with fumes of alcohol he was then 

 affected in such a way that when mated in competition 

 with the same male he normally had beaten he now failed 

 to sire any young. Yet if mated singly or alone with a 

 female he still had the power to beget offspring. The 

 alcohol treatment had in some way lowered the power of 

 his spermatozoa to fertilize an egg. Thus these sperma- 

 tozoa could no longer fertilize an egg in the presence of 

 the spermatozoa from a male which was originally less 

 potent than they. 



All of these data indicate differences in the behavior 

 and reactions of the individual germ cells, and such dif- 

 ferences probably account for the discrepancy existing 

 between the conditions of the male and female offspring 

 from an alcoholized father. Since this point has only 

 recently been discovered in the experiments, we now have 

 very few definite matings to test its meaning by back 

 crosses with the normal. But a large number of hetero- 

 geneous matings have been made during the last few 

 years and their gross results serve to verify the fact that 



