PREFACE 



The egg is a unique cell and certainly merits special attention; this 

 book is an attempt to review in detail available information on 

 mammalian eggs and to discuss briefly the trends of research from 

 the point of view of the cytologist. 



I am very grateful to my assistant Miss Heather Speer for the 

 trouble and care that she took in the compilation of the two 

 Appendices, in the preparation of the diagrams in Figs. 9, 10, 43, 

 72 and 73, and in the general work involved with the other illustra- 

 tions. All the colour photographs were taken by Mr. M. R. Young; 

 those of the fluorescent eggs were made possible by a technique 

 that he developed for this purpose. My grateful thanks are due to 

 Professor E. C. Amoroso, F.R.S., for providing the histological 

 sections of cat eggs illustrated in the colour Figs. 19, 20, 40-45, 

 67-69 and for the photographs appearing as Figs. 46 and 66, to 

 Dr. D. G. Szollosi and Dr. Hans Ris for the Frontispiece, to Dr. J. A. 

 Armstrong and Dr. R. Valentine for making the electron micro- 

 graphs in Figs. 27, 54 and 70, to Dr. Ruth Deanesly for providing 

 the sections of bat and hedgehog eggs shown in Figs. 39 and 75, and 

 to Mrs. Maureen Burke for checking the references. Acknowledg- 

 ment is gladly made to the publishers for permission to reproduce 

 the following Figures: Fig. 7, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadel- 

 phia; Figs. 13, 28, 31, 65, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial 

 Research Organization, Australia; Figs. 14, 32, 34, 53, Academic 

 Press Inc., New York; Figs. 24, 29, 58, 59, 61b, 71, Cambridge 

 University Press; Figs. 48, 49, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 

 Ltd., Oxford; Fig. 57, Royal Microscopical Society, London. The 

 blocks for Figs. 1, 6, 10, 12, 15, 16, 19-22, 25, 26, 35, 36, 38-46, 50, 

 5 X > 53. 55-59, 66-69, 74 and 75 were kindly made available by the 

 Editor of Endeavour. Finally, I should like to acknowledge to the 

 Medical Research Council my appreciation for being allowed time 

 to write this book and for the use of the facilities of the National 

 Institute for Medical Research in its preparation. 



C. R. Austin. 



National Institute for Medical Research 



London 



1961 



