CYTOLOGY OF HYDRACTINIA AND PENNARIA. 233 



vestigations over a period of ten years without having taken some 

 precautions against the more obvious sources of error. The fact 

 is, I had long ago provided against that contingency. Again, 

 her equally hasty dismissal of any question of methods of tech- 

 nique is without warrant. It was this more than any other one 

 matter that proved an obstacle to satisfactory cytologic results. 

 This I have called attention to in at least two of my more recent 

 papers. And the precaution mentioned in the above paper by 

 Smallwood as to this point was explicitly my own suggestion. 



A brief comment as to the question of amitosis raised by both 

 Smallwood and Beckwith must suffice for the present. In the 

 first place I have never questioned the fact of mitosis in any of 

 the cases under review, as the most cursory attention to my papers 

 will show. Whether there be amitosis is purely a question of 

 fact. Were my own results the only evidence it might very well 

 be questioned. Facts adduced from almost every phylum of 

 the animal kingdom are too well known at present to warrant 

 further dogmatism on a priori or theoretical grounds. Whether 

 my interpretation of the significance of the nuclear and chromatin 

 fragmentation and the vesiculate "nuclear nests" maybe war- 

 ranted I shall defer for later consideration. 



