Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1913 — NICE OF VARIEGATED COLORS [ARTICLE]

NICE OF VARIEGATED COLORS

Interesting Experiment* at Bronx Zoo, Which Have Produced < >'Mice of Many Colors LATEST ADDITION INTERESTING . ■ r Royal Purple in Color and is the Only One of the Kind in This CountryScientist’s Ambition la to Breed Tortoise-shell specimen. New York City.—The color scheme, of several families of mice has become altered in a remarkable manner by a series of experiments that are being conducted by Raymond L. Ditmars, curator at the Bronx Park Zoo, and several of his Japanese friends. By these experiments, in which the Darwinian theory of evolution has had a severe test, Mr. Dltmars and his friends say they have produced mice of ' variegated colors —yellow mice, purple mice, white mice, slatecolored mice, and mice that are partly purple and partly golden in color. In fact the mice that have figured in the experiments of Mr. Dltmars and his friends look as though they might have been dyed like Easter eggs. But no artificial coloring has been used in the reccnstruction of the color scheme in these little rodents, they say. Breeding and interbreeding has done it all. <

The experiments began several years ago in Japan. The mice used were similiar in some respects to the common house mice. The Japanese mice are a trifle larger, are just as prolific, and Quite As inoffensive as thedr American cousins. But in color the Japanese mice differ. Some of them are yellow, some gray, and some white, while the American house mice are uniformly gray, except in the cases of albinos. The three colors of Japanese mice all belong to the same species, zoologists say. Just why differ in color is not clear, althougu one theory advanced is that generations of existence amid surroundings of white, yellow, or gray, as the case may be, has been responsib for the different coloring 01 the mice. At any rate, taking these mice of three colors—yellow, gray, and white —the Japanese nave interbred them and produced offspring in colors rivaling the ccat of many colors. These experiments in the recoloring of mice hal been going on for several months when Mr. Ditmars became Interested. The Japanese experimenters were friends of his. He joined forces with them and the experiments were continued in a room in the reptile house a. the Zoo. This has been going on now for several months, and at the homes of Japanese in this city. Some of the mice bred there have been sent to various parts of the country and place., in collections, both private and public. A few of the highly colored mice have been sent to Japan. - While these experiments have been progressing at me Zoo, Mr. Ditmars’s friends in Japan also have been experimenting. One of the latest results of their investigations arrived at the Zoo a few days ago. It was a purple mouse, the first of that color ever seen here. Mr. Ditmars has produced come mice which are slate color and a number whose color seems to border on a light sky blue, but no purple ones had he ever seen until the one arrived from Japan. “The little animal isroyal purple In color, all except its feet, which are yellowish,” said Mr. Ditmars. "It is the most highly colored specimen I have ever seen. What we are all striving for in these experiments of breeding the mice of different colors Is a tortoise-shell mouse. Tortoiseshell guinea pigs ha.e been produced by interbreeding different colors, but M yet no such mice have ever been seen. It is not at all impossible that such a mouse can be produced, however. When it Is the man who gets It will have a valuable animat “This purple mouse that has just come over from Japan I shall keep until I can get a pure yellow mouse of the oposlte sex. I will then breed the two and see what the result will be. 1 have careiully examined the purple mouse to see if by any chance It has been dyed. I have found no trace of dye and am sure that no joke has been played on me by my Japanese friends.”