2 20 GUYER. [Vol. II. 



side. On the opposite side, in the figure, the follicular cells 

 have entirely disappeared, leaving behind a more or less distinct 

 layer of pigment (//). Under such conditions the phagocytes 

 continue to advance until they pass entirely across the egg, 

 devouring the cytoplasm as they go. 



Where the cell contents yet remained intact in the larger 

 eggs, it always had a peculiar, finely granular, homogeneous 

 appearance, very different from that of the same sized t^g of a 

 normal bird. In the latter egg the cytoplasm always has a 

 reticulated appearance, and grows much denser as it approaches 

 the periphery. Oil droplets of varying size are scattered plenti- 

 fully throughout it. No trace of such structures was evident in 

 the eggs under discussion. 



The question arises whether the doubling of eggs is really a 

 division of the original primordial ovum, or whether it may not 

 be a fusion of two cells, due to the general deterioration mani- 

 fested everywhere throughout the ovary. I had scarcely com- 

 pleted the observations here recorded, when I came upon the 

 paper of Stoeckel ('99), and found in his plates certain figures 

 which agreed almost identically with some of my own prepara- 

 tions. His drawings were made from sections of the ovary of 

 a woman, and show the same curious doubling of cells and 

 nuclei here mentioned {cf. Stoeckel, '99, Figs. 2-15). He is 

 inclined to regard the doubling as due to a division of the 

 primordial Qgg. He also records the case of an embryonic 

 infant in which such double eggs and nuclei were very common 

 and apparently perfectly natural phenomena. In regard to the 

 child he says that doubling is unquestionably due to an amitotic 

 division of the Qgg, or, in his own words : " Diese Befunde 

 zeigen zunachst, dass eine direkte Ei- und Follikeltheilung im 

 fotalen Ovarium sicher stattfindet." (Stoeckel, '99, p. 370.) 



His first case, however, was that of an adult, a nullipara, 

 twenty-nine years of age. From the facts he mentions in regard 

 to her, it does not seem improbable that the phenomena of 

 double Q.gg formation, as in the dove, was a pathological one. 

 Her history showed that she was of weak constitution and 

 chlorotic. 



As to the doubling of eggs in the dove ovary, I am inclined 



