During recent years considerable attention has been devoted in this Laboratory to conversion of carbonyl compounds (1), especially ketones, into hydantoins (2). In general, the method of Bucherer (3), which employs interaction of the carbonyl compound with potassium cyanide and ammonium carbonate in diluted alcohol solution, has been employed successfully, and especially in the preparation of 5-phenyl-(or 5-substituted phenyl)-5-substituted hydantoins. Therefore, it occasioned considerable surprise when Rubin and Day (4), although reporting conversion of a-(4-morphoIinyl)acetophenone (I) into 5-(4-morpholinyl) methyl-5-phenylhydantoin (II), recorded failure in attempts to prepare hydantoins from the next higher homolog of I, and from the 4-hydroxy and 3,4-