282 JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY. 
selves in a regular manner so as to make a continuous winding 
thread ; this is the ‘‘spireme stage.”’ This thread which carries ; 
the chromatic granules does not maintain the same diameter 
along its entire course, but is divided into numerous internodes 
by the larger granules which are suspended at regular intervals 
along the thread. The number of the small chromatic granules 
lying in the internodes, as well as the length of each internode, 
is variable. The whole number of internodes, however, seems 
to be always constant. In many instances, in this stage, the 
nucleolus, as seen in the resting state, does not appear. The 
cytoplasmic part of the cells stains very faintly, and is hardly 
visible. The thread which carries the chromatic granules is 
formed probably by two different substances. One of these is 
the linin which directly surrounds the granules, although it 
stains very faintly, and another substance which intimately sur- 
rounds or ensheaths the entire structure (linin and chromatic 
granules combined). Both of these are derived from the nucle- 
olus. Very careful observation shows that the real chromatin 
substance stains an intense bluish red color, while the rest of 
the thread takes a bright red color after HERMANN’S method. 
The nucleolar substance not only covers over the spireme, but 
also is scattered throughout the nucleus, ‘forming.a network 
(Fig. 3). The centrosome lies at one pole of the oval nucleus. 
The spireme later accumulates at the center of the cell-body, as 
Figure 4 shows. In this stage, the most important change of 
of the mitotic figure is that shown by the chromatic granules. 
As is shown in Fig. 3 and also is still partially visible in Fig. 4, 
the chromatic granules aggregate, forming larger masses of the 
same substance. Whether each large mass of the chromatin 
corresponds to each of the internodes of the thread respectively, 
is not clear. These chromatic masses are somewhat bean-shaped 
and stain an intense bluish red color. The nucleolar, as well 
as Ifnin substance which forms the thread in an early spireme 
stage ensheaths its chromatin, as Fig. 4 shows. The gradation 
from spireme to that of the aggregated form of the chromatin 
(Fig. 6) is beautifully shown in this figure. Another important 
