No. 2.] DEVELOPMENT OF BIDDER’S ORGAN. 453 
its way into the egg, taking with it a number of follicle cells 
(Fig. 28). In such cases the egg disappears very rapidly, its 
substance being absorbed directly by the blood. I have never 
found the cells of Bidder’s organ disintegrating as a result of 
the formation of a large amount of pigment in the cytoplasm. 
Pigment is rarely formed in the cells of Bidder’s organ in 
Bufo lentiginosus, and then only in adult males. In all of 
the cases which I have found the pigment was confined to a 
marrow zone around the periphery of the egg; it did not 
develop throughout the entire egg as is usually the case in 
eggs which are degenerating in the ovary. There was nothing 
in any of these eggs to indicate that the pigment was con- 
cerned in any way with the degenerative processes taking 
place in the cell. 
Although I have never found two adjacent odcytes degener- 
ating as a result of the development of a spherical vacuole 
between them, I have seen what Ognew considers as de- 
generation due to the penetration of one odcyte into another. 
_ This phenomenon was first described by Cerruti (6) in 1905. 
Cerruti states that in Bufo vulgaris the cytoplasm of one 
oocyte in Bidder’s organ sometimes forces its way into the 
cytoplasm of another odcyte. Later the nuclear substance of 
the entering cell flows towards the place of penetration and 
eventually one cell is engulfed by the other. Cerruti suggests 
that this process is analogous to the entrance of follicle cells 
into the egg, and that the entering cell may be considered as 
a parasite of the cell into which it penetrates. Ognew con- 
siders that this suggestion ventures too much since we would 
have to assume a subsequent struggle for existence between 
the two nuclei. Ognew does not think it possible that this 
phenomenon can be associated in any way with amitosis, and 
his only suggestion is that it is “a highly original process of 
degeneration” which requires further study. The figures given 
by Cerruti and by Ognew seem to me to show unmistakably 
that both of these investigators were dealing with cases of ami- 
tosis in degenerating ova which were greatly distorted in shape 
on account of the pressure of the surrounding cells. Bidder’s 
