THE TIME CURVE OF FACET DETERMINATION IN AN ULTRABAR STOCK OF DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

By a dissection of the data obtained by Driver on the effective periods at different temperatures in males and females of an ultrabar stock of Drosophila melanogaster it has been found that a symmetrical sigmoid curve satisfactorily describes the time course of the facet-determining reaction. Consequently the differences between members of the bar series in regard to this reaction do not represent merely developmental arrests of the process at some greater or lesser distance from a common upper asymptote, but the termination of the process is approached asymptotically. The velocity constant/temperature relation shows a discontinuity in the neighborhood of 21° which may be causally related to the change in the position of the effective period from the second to the third instar. The velocity constant apparently does not conform to the well known Arrhenius equation in its relation to temperature.