president's address. 685 



here gives an account of a method specially acla[)ted for bringing 

 out distinctly the intergranular network of the nucleus. As a 

 result of the employment of this method of preparation he claims 

 to have demonstrated that tlie coarser trabecular networks of 

 various authors exist only as local thickenings of this inter- 

 granular network ; the wide s|)aces between the trabecular, 

 however, do not exist, but are taken up by granules and the 

 fine intergranular network of the nucleus. This intergranular 

 network of the resting nucleus shows the same colour- reaction as 

 the so-called chromatin substance of the dividing nucleus. 



Similar networks are, as is well known, common in the 

 cytoplasm, and these, as Altmann has already shown, are composed 

 of rows of fine granules. The larger gra'nules in the meshes are 

 derived from the small granules of the network. Altmann 

 reitei'ates his view that the x-eally fundamental structures in the 

 cell are the granules and not the network. Pi-obably the network 

 in the resting nucleus is not capable of being distinctly analysed 

 into rows of granules only because of the excessive smallness of 

 the latter ; the changes which the network undergoes in cell- 

 division seem to indicate the probability of such an analysis. 



Recent work on Marsupials and Monotremes. 



At the beginning of last year Cope* published a paper in which 

 he expressed doubts of the Marsupial nature of Stirling's 

 Notoryctes typldops, and suggested certain afiinities with Chryso- 

 chloris, the Golden Mole, an Insectivore. 



He pointed out that mammae had not been detected in the 

 pouch, and drew the inference that the early parturition of the 

 Marsupials does not hold good in Notoryctes. The two osseous 

 nodules in the tendon of the external oblique muscles, he maintains, 

 resemble the fibro-cartilage found in a corresponding position in 

 some dogs rather than true marsupial bones. The inflection of 

 the angle of the mandible is not greater, he points out, than that 



* " On the habits and affinities of the new Australian Mammal, Notary ctt.% 

 typMops." American Naturalist, February, 1892. 



