30 (94) Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. 



6 (52). " Some Mendelian results in animal breeding " : C. B. 



DAVENPORT. 



The essence of Mendelism in inheritance is its alternative char- 

 acter. In this it is opposed to blending inheritance (as in human 

 skin color) which had been regarded as the typical sort of inheri- 

 tance. At the Carnegie Institution's Station for Experimental 

 Evolution certain new cases of nonblending inheritance have already 

 been found. Among sheep it appears from Dr. Alexander Graham 

 Bell's records that the offspring of two black sheep are (probably 

 always) black, although one or more of the grandparents were 

 white. It looks as if black color (like albinism) might be reces- 

 sive. Among canary birds it is found that of the offspring of 

 crested and of plain headed birds, some are crested and some are not. 

 Poultry have been studied because of the numerous characters they 

 exhibit. When a Japanese long-tailed, clean-legged cock was 

 crossed on a white bantam hen, the two surviving offspring were 

 highly colored like the father and had abundant feathers on the 

 legs like the mother. 



7 (53)- " On the decomposition products of epinephrin " : JOHN 



J. ABEL and R. DE M. TAVEAU. (Presented by WILLIAM 

 J. GIES.) 



The empirical formula, C 10 H 13 NO 3 .^-H 2 O, adopted by Abel for 

 that member of the epinephrin series which he has called epi- 

 nephrin hydrate (the adrenalin of Takamine) is, at present, the sub- 

 ject of an acute controversy. The authors have been engaged in 

 a repetition of the analytic work on which Abel based the above 

 formula for epinephrin hydrate. In view of the suggestion of 

 Abderhalden and Bergell that this substance should be prepared 

 in a way that avoids oxidation by the air, the authors have under- 

 taken the laborious task of preparing and purifying it in an atmos- 

 phere of hydrogen. The results of their work in this direction 

 will soon be published. 



The authors emphasized the fact that the ^H 2 0 of their 

 empirical formula has always been regarded by them to be water 

 of constitution, and not water of crystallization as their opponents 

 have taken for granted. The assumption that this ^H^O, so easily 

 removable by high heat and by various acids, is water of consti- 

 tution necessitates doubling the present empirical formula, a pro- 



