106 ZOOLOGY 



not agree with Parat in the case of the spermatocyte of Cavia. 

 According to Parat, the vacuome hes in the idioplasm inside the 

 Golgi cortex, while Gatenby considers the true vacuome as vacuoles 

 outside the acroblast — see above.) This point has been taken up 

 by Gatenby, and in the paper previously referred to he makes some 

 very interesting suggestions. In the first place, in the forms in 

 which the vacuome has been described, it is apparent that it may 

 either be inside or outside the Golgi complex, e.g., Helix and 

 Abraxas respectively. He is inclined to accept Nassonov's theory 

 regarding the contractile vacuole of the protozoa, and thinks, 

 therefore, that the contractile vacuole of the protozoa is perhaps 

 the homologue of the vacuolar system of the metazoa. From this 

 he argues that the archaic position of the vacuome is inside the 

 archoplasm (idioplasm) just as in Helix, and possibly other forms 

 not yet described. The vacuome may become extra-idioplasmic 

 either later on in the cell-cycle, or else in some of the higher forms, 

 such as Cavia. In Abraxas there is undoubtedly a very close topo- 

 graphical relationship, the first observed appearance of the 

 vacuomes being in a position just vacated by the Golgi apparatus. 



Gatenby concludes then by stating that the vacuome appears 

 to be related to the Golgi apparatus, but does not think that the 

 vacuome should be raised in status to that of a protoplasmic 

 inclusion like the mitochondria and Golgi elements, as there is no 

 evidence to show that it can " per se increase afterwards the number 

 of its vacuoles." 



Another consequence of the vacuome theory of Parat is a certain 

 confusion which has arisen owing to the use of the vacuolar concept 

 of the Golgi apparatus without sufficient definition of terms and 

 ideas. Reference has already been made to Nath (102) and 

 King (71), both of whom seem to have accepted the vacuome 

 theory, for they describe Golgi vacuoles seen in unstained cell 

 intra vitam, a thing which is not possible with the ordinary classical 

 Golgi apparatus, as Strange ways and Canti have shown in 1927. 

 Their descriptions are therefore difficult to interpret. In 

 most cases it seems to us that they have seen and described the 

 vacuole around which the Golgi proper lies as a sort of crust or 

 cortex. This is the interpretation given by Gatenby (35, p. 317). 



