38 THE AMPHIOXUS. 



the specimens of the AmpJiioxus collected at noon by 

 Pantano. 



The eggs were found to be mostly entirely isolated. 

 It was only seldom that they hung a few at a time in 

 a little lump together, though Kowalevsky describes 

 this condition as the regular one. The substance of 

 the egg consists of a clear protoplasm, which is how- 

 ever so darkened by numerous yolk granules that the 

 whole egg appears as a somewhat untranspareiit body. 



The yolk granules were described by Kowalevsky 

 as fat globules. I cannot agree with this account. 

 They are round corpuscles, which do not interrupt the 

 light to so great a degree as fat bodies. Their relation 7 

 too, with regard to reagents is quite different from 

 that of fat. They are, indeed, very strongly darkened 

 by osmic acid, and under this process the earlier 

 stages, which still contain a large number of yolk 

 granules, grow far darker than the later stages, in 

 which they are already more dissolved. These cor- 

 puscles are not however dissolved through treatment 

 with alcohol and turpentine, or oil of cloves. Carmiii 

 will not colour them. I must mention here, that 

 protoplasm itself, also, is made browner by osmic acid 

 in the earlier stages than in the later. 



