that stippled the bottom, and transferred them to 

 a watch crystal containing some sea-water. Ob- 

 viously they had just been fertilized, for one was 

 describing erratic circumscribed movements which, 

 I readily guessed, was owing to the presence of the 

 invisible spermatozoa whose impinging contact 

 was causing it to rotate. The microscope soon con- 

 firmed this. 



Under a lens of moderate power, the individual 

 egg is seen to consist of a somewhat opaque, rufous 

 yolk surrounded by a thick transparent shell. Near 

 the surface of the yolk is a small round clear spot: 

 the germinative vesicle, so called because it is this 

 region that the single spermatozoon must pene- 

 trate to form that union from which the develop- 

 ment of the future serpent-star proceeds. For of all 

 the multitude of minute spermatozoa that are at- 

 tracted to the proportionately vastly larger egg, 

 only one is favored to come into coalescing contact 

 with this spot fraught with such tremendous 

 potentiality. 



The spermatozoa were thickly clustered around 

 the egg, and the majority of them, on inspection 

 with a lens of still higher magnification, seemed to 

 have their heads attached to, if not actually im- 



[98] 



