72 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY MORPHOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS. 



cells, and that the smaller ones are also found in the males. This 

 latter fact agrees with what I have suggested, that some of the 

 floating cells arise in the ampulla. My chief reasons for my suppo- 

 sition, however, are the following: I find globules of the secretion 

 of the ampulla cells in some of the floating cells and also scattered 

 loosely among them (Fig. 19). These globules in and among the 

 floating cells have the same general appearance and a similar 

 staining capacity as the secretion in the ampulla cells. Again, in 

 spaces within some of the ampulla cells I find bodies resembling the 

 floating cells with lumps of the secretion within them (Fig. 18). 

 The conclusion, therefore, lies near that some of the floating cells 

 originate within the cells of the ampulla, engulf within them some 

 of the secretion, and are then expelled into the lumen of the ampulla. 

 Better said, perhaps, they represent portions of the ampulla cells 

 with some of the secretion. I also found several instances in which 

 a floating cell had the appearance of being expelled from an ampulla 

 cell. Conant suggests for a similar observation that the cells were 

 about to be swallowed by the ampulla cells. I believe, however, that 

 my finding a secretion similar to that within the cells of the 

 ampulla, in some of the floating cells, as also bodies very much 

 like them and filled with secretion within the ampulla cells, 

 together with ConamVs finding floating cells in males, and finally 

 the observation that the floating cells are usually quite dilapidated, 

 never showing a healthy cell structure all this leads me to conclude 

 that some of the floating cells originate from the ampulla cells, and 

 that they have a nutrient function in distributing the secretion. 

 This is quite the reverse of what Conant supposed, that they were 

 taken in as nourishment by the ampulla cells. I also find what 

 appears to be a secretion in the endoderm of the tentacles of both 

 Charybdea and Tripedalia, and believe this is another source of the 

 floating cells. (See below, under tentacles.) 



I also found other very darkly staining bodies (Fig. 19) both 

 within the floating cells and free in the ampulla cavity, and more 

 numerous in the ampulla cells themselves. This again goes to show 

 that floating cells take their origin from the ampulla cells. What 

 these darkly staining bodies are, I cannot say. Perhaps they are 

 something akin to the " Chromatoider Nebenkorper '' described by 

 Lenhossek (L), or they represent another kind of secretion. If these 

 floating cells are derived from the cells of the ampulla, the active 



