IO8 OSCAR K1ODI 1 . 



the recently broken capsules and the large. Hubby, often asym- 

 metrical, yolk-containing ones. Some of thor laitrr capsules 

 might be mistaken for resorbed ova, since they too have a closed 

 stigma; that is, the slit or splitting which occurs in the capsule 

 at the time of ovulation. and which allows the escape of tin- < >vum, 

 later heals together and the cavity of the follicle is once more 

 completely sealed. The chances for such confusion are further 

 increased by the fact that this central chamber may also oc- 

 casionally re-accumulate yolk. 



It is possible nevertheless in favorable material to be quite 

 sure that the stigma has been broken and reunited a thickened, 

 accentuated, and often more or less ragged point of reunion 

 indicating this. Furthermore, a series of follicles in the same 

 ovary, showing the most recent ones still broken open, often 

 decides the matter at once with certainty. The capsule from 

 which a sample of yolk for analysis was taken was one of such a 

 scries. In this case there were nine yolk-containing capsules in 

 various stages of extra-ovular yolk-production; and in addition, 

 one other the newest follicle plainly recognized by its whole 

 appearance as a recently emptied one. This follicle, however, 

 showed the once broken lips of the stigma now nearly completely 

 grown together, but with its inner cavity as dean and free from 

 yolk as at the moment of ovulation. It is certain that the fol- 

 licles of this ovary had liberated ova, and that instead of degen- 

 erating thereafter these capsules quickly closed tin- breaches 

 formed in extruding the ova, and began the production of yolk 

 in their external walls. 



It is easy to demonstrate that the yolk-filled spaces bulging 

 from the sides of the capsules have no open connection with the 

 central cavity of the capsule; that is to say, these spaces are not 

 connected with the former seat of yolk formation. Several times 

 I have made a slit in the scar or stigma and, finding the interior 

 clean and free from yolk, have tried by squeezing the various 

 bags of yolk lying in the external walls of the capsule to make 

 their yolk How into the central cavity. In no instance have 1 

 succeeded in thus finding any connection whatever between thr-.r 

 new yolk-containing cavities and the old cavity lormerly oc- 

 cupied by the egg. On the contrary, careful dirnioii> of 



