OINCIDENTALLY with the beginning of modern genetics in 1900, anti-c genic differences in the erythrocytes of members of two species of animals were discovered. LANDSTEINER (1900LANDSTEINER ( , 1901 made his now famous discovery of the blood groups of man. EHRLICH and MORGENROTH (1900) demonstrated the existence of individual differences in the antigenic constitution of goat erythrocytes. Later, TODD and WHITE (1910) proposed on the basis of their work with the cellular antigens of cattle that the red cells of almost every individual could be distinguished from those of any other individual. LANDSTEINER and MILLER (1924) were the first to detect individual differences in the antigenic constitution of the erythrocytes of chickens. By absorbing rabbit anti-chicken serum individually with the cells of various chickens and testing the resulting fluids with the cells of ten individuals, eight different cell types were recognized. Following the injection of the blood of one chicken into another (iso-immunization), TODD (1930) found that iso-agglutinins were produced against the cells of the donor as well as against the cells of many other individuals. By using highly polyvalent antisera, produced by pooling the sera from several chickens which had been previously injected with the pooled cells of as many as 22 other chickens, TODD was able to show that the cells of any chicken, with the exception of close relatives, could be differentiated from the cells of every other individual. Further, he demonstrated that any cellular antigen possessed by an individual was present in the cells of one or both of its parents. Later TODD (1931) reported that the cells of each chick in each of three families appeared to have different absorptive or reactive capacities from the cells of every other chick, although some were quite similar In accounting for the probably genetic relationships of the genes responsible for these observed antigenic differences, WIENER (1934) hypothesized the existence of three or more alleles at some loci. KOZELKA (1933), using absorbed rabbit anti-chicken sera, found marked similarity in the corpuscles of individuals belonging to different breeds. This led him to believe that the apparent multiplicity of antigenic differences previously reported in chickens by TODD could be explained "by a variable assortment of a limited number of factors". From the Departments of Genetics (No. 411) and Poultry Husbandry, Agricultural Experiment Station, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN.

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