l8O OTTO GLASER. 



answered by studying the others. Follicle c suggests that 

 compound follicles might have originated by a process of budding. 

 To test this view part of the wall of c together with the attached 

 follicle c" was cut into sections 10^ thick. To my surprise no 

 connection whatever between the lumina of the two follicles 

 could be found. The place where this was expected showed the 

 granulosa and fibrosa of both, and between the fibrosae, a thick 

 connective tissue mass highly vascularized. I examined other 

 apparently branching follicles, such as e, and again found the 

 same thing true. In certain other instances connections between 

 adjacent follicles do exist, but these are not via the necks of the 

 attached follicles, but through their sides, and must therefore 

 have come about secondarily by the disappearance in these 

 places not only of the inter-follicular tissue, but also of the 

 granulosae and fibrosae. If c" then is not a bud, how did it come 

 to occupy its present position? 



In d, follicles d" and d'" are attached to the main suspensorium 

 by short necks of their own. These however are so completely 

 fused proximally with the suspensorium of d that their inde- 

 pendence is largely obliterated. E", although firmly fused to e, 

 really has a suspensorium of its own, but this is reduced to an 

 extremely fine thread, visible as an independent attachment 

 only in one or two places. C" upon careful examination proves 

 also to have indications of an independent attachment to the 

 central ovarian mass. The threads therefore are reduced sus- 

 pensoria, and the compound follicles are fusion products. 



The question how these fusions occur remains to be answered. 

 Indications as to how these could have come about are contained 

 in the facts just discussed, for these suggest that one follicle is 

 carried away from the central ovarian mass by another. If this 

 is true, we should be able to discover various stages in the process. 

 Accordingly we can interpret b as a late stage in which intimate 

 union has occurred among the follicles distally, whereas proxi- 

 mally the suspensorium of the group shows the multiple nature 

 of its origin by its distinct division into a number of strands. 

 A is another late stage, only here the follicles seen are larger 

 than in b, their fusion is less complete, and a" has worked its 

 way into a so that the yolk of the latter came to lie between 



