The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-05
FATHERI.E LATEST MYSTERY Is Male Species Really Use- less After All?
  A NOVEL EXPERIMENT By Using a Needle to Puncture Tiny Hole in Egg, the Tadpole Is Developed in the
 Usual Way
\ NOVEL EXPERIMENT
From the New York American.

Quite the newest marvel of science is
 the development of a frog from tad pole born of an unfertilized egg-in fact. a "fatherless frog"
 This is the application on a higher
 plane of animal life of the principle
 discovered by Professor Loeb-which
 was the scientific sensation of a few
 years ago-that the artificial puncture
 of the unfertlized egg of sea urchin
 the lowest form of animal life-was
 sufficient to bring about the phenome-
 non of reproduction of the species
 The apparent result of this experi- l ment was to show that the mother Is | "the race.' that mechanical means en-
 able the father to be done away with;
 that the only necessary function of the
 male element in reproduction is to in-
 sure certain kind and extent of rup-
 ture of the virgin substance of the ovum, or egg. Writing on the application of this principle to the eggs of frogs, Sir Ray
 Lankester K. C. B. F. R. s. the famous
 English Naturalist, affrms that the ! claim made a year ago by M. Battalion. l has been confirmed by another French naturalist, M. Henneguy, who there fore, may properly be said to share rne 1 honor of being father of the "fatherless
 frog.9
 1 To explain this discovery a few words ] as to well known facts are necessary. 1 It is well known that If we isolate a female frog at the egg laying season and let her swim in perfectly pure i filtered water, and proceed to deposit some of her eggs In that water the | NN unchanged for a time, and then decom- pose, become, in fact, rotten" It is matter of common knowledge that 1t is necessary for the eggs to be "fertilized' in order that they may start on that series of changes and growth which we call development" and become tadpoles and eventually young frogs. The Fertilization of the frogs eggs is effected in ordinary con dition by the presence in the water of the pond into which the female sheds them of microscopic sperm filaments (often called spermatozoa, or simply "sperms'D, which are shed into the water at the same time by the male
 frog.
 The egg tthe blackish brown spheri-
 cal body, as big a rapeseed, which Is
 embedded in thin jelly, and is famil-
 far to those who are drawn by curiosity
 to look into the waters of wayside
 ponds in spring) is a single cell or col puscle of protoplasm distended with
 dark colored and other granules of nutrient substance.
 A single sperm tthough requiring the microscope to render it visible) is also | a single cell. It is a minute oval body, with long serpentine tail of actively undulating protoplasm. Hundreds of l thousands of these are shed into the
 water at the breeding season by the
 male frog. One is enough to fertilize I the egg. The sperm cells swim in the water, and are chemically attracted by
 the eggs. As there are so many sperms, ! one of them is sure to reach each black egg sphere. It drives its way l into the substance of the egg. making | a minute hole in its surface; then tne protoplasm of the sperm fuses with the
 protoplasm of the egg and becomes in- | timately mixed with it.
 1 The egg Is thereupon said to be fer | tilized"-that is to say, rendered fer
 tile" It at once commences to move. l It's surface ripples and contracts and l nips in deeply, so that the sphere is
 marked out into two hemispheres. The
 little mass elongates. increases in size, and gradually assumes the form of a young tadpole.
 A.4e recent discovery of NJ Battalion Is this, viz, that you can make the frogs egg develop in a perfectly regu- lar way and become a tadpole and then | q young frog without the admission to 1 1t of a sperm filament or of any sup- ! stance derived from the male frog. All you have to do--and the opera tion, though it sounds easy and simple, Is an exceedingly delicate and difficult one-is to prick with a fine needle the
 surface of the little black egg sphere (not merely of the jelly surrounding iD when 1t is shed by the female frog Into perfectly pure water free from sperms or anything of the sort. The slight artificial puncture acts as does the natural puncture by the swimming sperm filament. and Is sufficient. | The egg proceeds to develop quite regu- | larly. There is no fusion of the nucleus
 of the egg shell with any matter from the outside; no paternal material is intro- duced, but the nucleus of the egg cell d- vides just as though there had been. The whole progeny of cells, successively formed, are the pure offspring of the ma ternal egg cell and its nucleus.
 The tadpoles and young frogs so pro- 'duced are examples of what is called i ''parthenogenesis' that is to say, virginal eproduction--reproducti without fertili-
 zation by material derived from male parent. The needle, which gives off no
 material but simply makes tiny break | in the surface of theegg, does all that is necessary.
 i There are questions of great interest
 still to be made out as the result of his l discovery Can the fatherless brood be reared to maturing and again made to lyield fatherless generation? What is lthe precise structure of the nuclei of he | cells, which originate from the nucleus | of the egg cell only, and not from a nu- cleus formed by the fusion of that with d sperm cell nucleus? These and similar questions are the motive of further care lful study now in progress.