A SYNTHETIC FOOD MEDIUM FOR THE CULTIVATION OF DROSOPHILA : PRELIMINARY NOTE.

In this paper is described the composition and method of making a standard synthetic medium for the laboratory cultivation of Drosophila melanogaster. It is shown that this medium is greatly superior to the banana medium commonly used for this purpose in respect of both the fertility and the mortality of flies kept on it. The range of superiority in respect of fertility is at different densities of population from about 48 per cent at the lowest, to 98 per cent at the highest densities experimentally reported here. The general experience of the laboratory with this medium, which frees experimental work on Drosophila from the incubus of the highly variable banana, shows it to have other points of superiority besides those discussed here.