The DNA of bacteriophage SP8, when denatured, yields two components differing in buoyant density in cesium chloride gradients and separable by chromatography on a column of methylated bovine serum albumin and kieselguhr. The denser of the two strands (H) contains more pyrimidines and fewer purines than the lighter (L) strand. Only the H strand forms hybrids with the RNA synthesized by the infected host. The L strand is capable of annealing with complementary RNA synthesized in vitro with it as primer in reactions catalyzed by RNA polymerase. During the vegetative development of phage, host-specific messenger RNA is also synthesized.