The relative proliferative capacity of haematopoietic cell populations derived from 22-week-old adult bone marrow and 14-18 day foetal liver has been studied i n lethally irradiated syngeneic recipients by means of chromosome markers. Although starting a t a disadvantage i n terms of the number of colony-forming units (stem cells) injected, the foetal liver-derived populations steadily increased their relative numbers i n the myeloid and lymphoid tissues over a period of several weeks until a plateau was reached. It is suggested that stem cells in foetal liver have, on average, a higher intrinsic capacity for self-renewal than do those i n bone marrow, falls to the adult level within about ten weeks of transfer.