390 GEORGE T. HARGITT 
The entodermal cells from which the egg cells have arisen appear 
not to differ in any way from any of the other entoderm cells of 
the region; they are all cells which line the coelenteric cavity of 
the pedicel of the gonophore. Before the multiplication of the 
cells which led to the formation of the gonophore took place 
these cells were regular entodermal cells lining the coelenteric 
cavity of the stem of the hydroid; there is nothing that would set 
one cell apart from any other in position, size or appearance. 
In other words, previous to and in the early stages of gonophore 
formation all the entodermal cells of this region would be con- 
sidered as ordinary differentiated epithelial cells. And any ento- 
derm cell has the power of becoming a germ cell, provided only 
that it is in the position where the gonophore is to form. If no 
question of assumed theoretical importance came up, as ofthe 
origin of the germ cells, probably no one would even think that 
one of these cells had any different history, or any different poten- 
tiality than every other cell. Much less would he say that’ even 
though no difference could be discovered by the most delicate 
technic and with the latest and most refined optical apparatus, 
yet one particular cell must have had a different history, must have 
different capabilities, must be of a sort fore-ordained for a particu- 
lar purpose:since, forsooth, it came to a different end from its 
neighbor. And yet is not this just the argument of those who 
insist that the germ cells must of necessity be different, and have a 
different history from the somatic cells? 
In Campanularia flexuosa there seems not to be the slightest 
doubt that the egg cells have arisen from differentiated epithelial 
(entoderm) cells lining the coelenteric cavity, which are not 
different from any others in the same place. The first indication 
of any difference comes when the nucleus increases very much in 
size; forms a spireme of chromatin, more or less regular in its 
arrangement (figs. 2, 3, 4); and a little later the cytoplasm is a 
little more compact and stains more deeply (figs. 3, 4, 5). As 
already mentioned, this does not occur in the prophase of dividing 
cells not forming germ cells. And in the egg cells the apparent 
prophase is not followed by any division, but from this time on, 
as shown in figure 2 to 6, and so forth, there is an unbroken series 
