200 CORA J. BECKWITH 



Benda's method, the protoplasmic granules and the chromatin 

 both take the yellow color of the alizarine. Flemming's killing 

 fluid produces a slightly coarser but still evenly distributed precip- 

 itate which stains somewhat more intensely with iron-hematoxy- 

 lin than that killed in Meves' fluid. Several other fixatives (subli- 

 mate-acetic, picro-abetic) give very striking pictures, since they 

 produce a strong coarse precipitate, which is not evenly distrib- 

 uted, but more or less massed in the region of the nucleus, and 

 which has a great affinity for basic stains. If stained with iron- 

 hematoxylin, the pseudochromatin-granules are intensely black. 

 If stained with Auerbach's fluid or double stained with thionin 

 and eosin, a striking contrast is produced since the nucleus here 

 takes the 'plasma' stain (fuchsin or eosin), thus emphasizing the 

 fact that the protoplasmic granules stain with the basic dyes 

 (methyl-green or thionin) . 



In my material I can discover no such striking picture as 

 Schaxel finds of groups of granules on the outside of the nuclear 

 wall at the ends of nuclear threads, regarded by him as centers 

 of distribution and diffusion into the protoplasm. Poor fixation, 

 resulting from the use of sublimate-acetic and picro-acetic fluids, 

 may give rjse to some such appearance, but in good fixations I 

 find a uniform distribution of the granules from the beginning 

 (figs. 4, 5, 6, 7, 17). Furthermore, the egg is constantly increasing 

 in size and yet the granular mass which increases with it, retains 

 at all times its uniform distribution. By the time the egg has 

 reached the gonophore, it is of considerable size and is com- 

 pletely filled with these densely staining granules (figs. 8, 9). In 

 the figures they are always represented by gray granules. 



3. Basic staining globules 



In the young egg, in addition to the pseudochromatin-granules, 

 a second element, consisting of basic-staining globules, appears 

 against the nuclear membrane (fig. 17). Since these globules 

 ordinarily stain as the granules do (iron-hematoxylin) , and since 

 they appear very much like similar bodies figured by Schaxel in 

 Pelagia, which he interprets as centers of dispersal of the 'extra- 



