Mood of Australian Animal*. ]S7 



.appear to play the part of macrophages in reptiles and amphibia, 

 and are frequently possessed of so-called "secretory vacuoles." 

 1. Neutrophile leucocytes, consisting of an oval, large, basophile 

 •cell body, fibrillar in structure, with oxyphilic paraplasm; round, 

 indented, or polymorphous nuclei; not found far back in the 

 vertebrate scale, and probably not corresponding to the phagocytes 

 of cold-blooded vertebrates. These apparently correspond to the 

 polymorphonucleate cell of other writers, and arc regarded by 

 Gruner as being absent in their true specific form in cold-blooded 

 vertebrates, tin' part of the human polymorph being played by the 

 macrophage in the frog and reptiles. In birds he includes under 

 this group mast cells, eosinophile cells, with rod-like granules 

 (pseudo-eosinophiles), and cells of the same size full of minute 

 oxyphilic granules. 5, Eosinophiles, with granules of various 

 shapes and sizes, (i. Mast cells, which ate mono- or pol\ nucleate, 

 variable in size, with a vacuolated cell body. They are divided 

 into those containing Hue, irregular granules, staining red-violet 

 with Giemsa, and those containing scanty, coarse granules. Be- 

 sides these there are forms more or less characteristic of certain 

 pathological conditions, such as plasma cells, giant cells, etc. ; as 

 well as various structures which may represent stages in the life 

 history of the normal blood cells. For the work under discussion 

 I have adopted the following terms in an attempt to reduce the 

 blood cells of the various groups of animals to a common classifica- 

 tion. 



1. Erythrocytes. Nucleated or non-nucleated cells, according 

 to the group of animal. Normally staining yellow-orange or brick- 

 red, but polychromatic or basophil forms were common in all species. 

 In all cases irregular forms were present, even when the blood was 

 not apparently pathological. In amphibia, reptiles, and some 

 birds, I noted, besides these ordinary forms, structures which 1 

 have called spindle cells, and which I take to correspond to the 

 thrombocytes of Burnett ami Fantham. In the lower vertebrates 

 these cells are thought to perform the function of blood platelets 

 (Gruner). In many cases these cells were distinctly bi-polar, though 

 in the majority they were drawn out at one end only. They were 

 not as consistently basophil as the authors quoted describe, but 

 their tendency seemed to be decidedly towards basic or polychro- 

 matic reactions. They have been described to me as artefacts, but 

 as I have repeatedly observed them in the haemocytometer while 

 making an estimation of corpuscles, and once in an examination 

 of fresh frog's blood during a laboratory demonstration, while 



