96 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES [Proc. 4th Ser. 



By allowing a minimal amount of light to come through the 

 condenser of the microscope, the layer has a most brilliant opales- 

 cent appearance. In unstained, freshly fixed formalin sections, by 

 transmitted light, it has a pale brownish appearance (Fig. lo A), 

 but in stained sections it appears darker and greenish brown (Figs. 

 II, 12, 13 and 14). 



Fig. ID, A and B, represents the appearance of an unstained sec- 

 tion of the layer by reflected and transmitted light. By reflected 

 light this layer appears as a bluish-white cloud which obliterates 

 the underlying structures, or at least makes them appear hazy and 

 indistinct. 



In both the stained and unstained vertical sections the layer is 

 seen to be composed of parallel rows of somewhat irregular blocks, 

 their long axes being parallel to the outline of the epidermis. 

 These blocks are of varying size and asymmetrical shape, and un- 

 doubtedly possess small, deeply staining nuclei. Some sections 

 show these nuclei better than others. The vertical section gives 

 little idea of their morphology for when seen in tangentially cut 

 sections they appear very irregular in outline and possess short 

 pseudopodoid processes which may terminate in hooklike expan- 

 sions or branches. Every conceivable shape exists and no simi- 

 larity exists in these bodies except in their marked irregularity 

 (Fig 14). In some sections these cells appear syncytial, for their 

 processes are in juxtaposition, thus leaving numerous openings of 

 various sizes between these apparently joined processes. Through 

 these openings run the branches of the melanophores (Figs. 14 

 and 17). That really no syncytium exists appears likely, for in 

 vertical sections no such connections between the processes can be 

 made out. When viewed from above, the area around the nucleus 

 has a bluish cast while the periphery is a pale greenish brown. 



One can conclude then that the cells of this layer are fairly thick, 

 irregular plates of fairly uniform thickness throughout but with a 

 marked irregular outline. 



Carlton describes a somewhat similar layer in the scale of Anolis 

 which he calls the ochrophore layer and which he considers analo- 

 gous to the ochrophore layer of Keller for the chameleon. He 

 believes that this layer produces the green color and finds that by 

 reflected light it appears bluish green and by transmitted light 

 yellowish green. From the micro-photographs accompanying his 

 paper, one cannot be mistaken as to the identity of the layer in 

 question. He has noted the block-like, parallel arrangement in 



