1022 
Journal of Agricultural Research 
Vol. XXXI, No. 11 
Table III. — Description of rats used in experiment 2 
Rat 
No. 
Ration 
Sex 
Initial 
age 
Initial 
weight 
Litter 
Rat 
No. 
Ration 
Sex 
Initial 
age 
Initial 
weight 
Litter 
13 
Sweet_ 
Male_ 
Days 
25 
Grams 
48 
112-B 
17 
Rancid.-_ 
Male_ 
Days 
25 
Grams 
46 
112-B 
14 
...do_ 
Female. - 
25 
38 
112-B 
18 
...do_ 
Female... 
25 
49 
112-B 
15 
...do_ 
Male_ 
25 
38 
113-A 
19 
—do_ 
Male_ 
25 
37 
113-A 
16 
...do_ 
Female... 
25 
39 
113-A 
20 
_._do_ 
Female... 
a 26 
37 
113-A 
a Rat No. 20 was started one day later than the others. 
Contrasted with the conspicuous greed of the rancid group for the>^ 
vitamin-A supplement was the comparative indifference toward it of 
rat No. 14 and in smaller degree of rats Nos. 13 and 16 of the control 
group. All the rats in the rancid group, as well as rat No. 15 in the 
control group, regularly consumed their daily supplements within a 
five-minute period, while rat No. 14 scarcely touched the supple¬ 
mental ration during the first week of the experiment, and consumed 
it with but little interest and for the most part incompletely during 
the remainder of the experiment. Rats Nos. 13 and 16, on the other 
hand, while they ate the supplemental ration incompletely at the 
beginning of the experiment, consumed it completely and with an 
increasing show of interest in the later stages of the experiment. 
Throughout the experiment all the rats remained healthy and active 
and free from ophthalmia or other evidence of deficiency disease. 
The growth curves for this experiment are presented in Figure 2 r 
and the food-consumption data in Table IV. Evidently no 
appreciable limitation in the growth of the female rats in the rancid 
series was occasioned by the fact that they consumed slightly less 
ration per day per gram of body weight than the females in the 
control series. Presumably, therefore, diminished food consumption 
was not the limiting factor in. the growth of the male rats of the 
