44 



T. KOMAI : STUDIES ON TWO ABERRANT CTENOPHORES 



Text-figure i. Nerve-plexus in inatCTinal ret^ion uf l^iody, the transverse line on 

 the upper end shows the margin of Imdv. xOon. 



the above text-figure is an example. Perhaps it may be acknowledged 

 that the figure shows a close resemblance to that in Bethe's work 

 ('95). The staining method is briefly as follows : — The animal was 

 submerged in sea-water which had been coloured deep blue by that 

 stain; after some thirty minutes the animal was taken out of the water 

 and laid upon a slide with one drop of that water and exposed in 

 the air for about half or one hour; it was then covered with a slip and 

 examined with the microscope. Few of the animals died during the 

 manipulation. When the staining was satisfactory, there came out 

 an element stained deep blue which appeared like the figure. It 

 occurs directly beneath the ventral epidermis in the regions close to 

 the external margin of the body. It consists of cells with extremely 

 fine but very long fibrous processes. The cell-body may be spheroidal, 

 spindle-shaped, etc. and of somewhat variable sizes, though alwa\'s much 

 smaller than the gland cells in the epidermis which stain somewhat 

 with the same dye. It stains uniformly and very deeply, rendering the 

 examination of the nucleus almost impossible. The processes given out 

 from the cell arc from two to four. The\' are extremeh' fine throughout 

 their length; but since they take the stain as strongly as the cell-body, 

 they are not very difficult to make out. They run largeK' parallel with 



