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Dr. Noble counts himself lucky that Whitey is a female. By illuminating her abdomen he was able to glimpse a batch of eggs which she will no doubt soon lay. If the eggs are fertilized by an ordinary male, the offspring, according to Mendelian law, will all be dark but will carry Mother Whitey's albino inheritance. If these are mated to one another, one in four of the third generation will be albinos. In such a way Dr. Noble considers it entirely feasible to breed an albino strain.
Whitey was discovered in St. Lawrence County, N. Y. last year by a four-year-old named Betty Jean Goldsmith. When she cried "White frog!" to her father, he went skeptically to the pond, found pale, pink-eyed Whitey. He gave the frog to Christopher William Coates, tropical fish man of the New York Aquarium, who, realizing the creature's value to Science, sent it up to the American Museum. Although size is the only clue to a frog's age, Dr. Noble estimates that Whitey is three years old.
*The Herald Tribune's William Zerbe is not to be confused with dapper, free-lancing Photographer Jerome B. Zerbe Jr., who takes semi-candid photographs of celebrities (TIME Dec. 10). William Zerbe received this accolade Stanley Walker's City Editor: "[He] can take a really gripping picture of a steak smothered with onions and mushrooms."