538 CHARLES W. HARGITT 
and not rare mode of cell division. The following recent utter- 
ance of one of the avowed conservatives will show how just is 
this claim: ‘‘ Accepting the idioplasm hypothesis. . . what 
do we know of its transmission? We may answer with assurance 
that it is transmitted from cell to cell by division; and we may 
safely presume, I think, in most cases by mitosis, though the di- 
rect or amitotic process may play a larger réle than was formerly 
supposed.” (Wilson, ’09.) 
My first suggestion concerning the problem was made in con- 
nection with my early account of Pennaria (’00); and the same 
year, Allen, one of my graduate students, made a similar statement 
in connection with the development of Tubularia. In a paper 
on regeneration, my son, G. T. Hargitt (’03), described abundant 
amitoses in the regenerating hydranths of Tubularia, and sug- 
gested the probable relations of the process to rapid growth and 
metabolism. In several contributions Child has also described 
amitosis, and in one in particular (’07), gave a brief account of the 
process in a series of organisms from coelenterates to birds. In 
one of these he made bold to predict that ‘‘future investigations 
will probably show that amitosis is at least as important in the 
life of the cell as mitosis.”” How timely was this prediction may 
be inferred by an examination of several recent papers on the sub- 
ject, particularly by Patterson (’08), on ‘Amitosis in the pigeon’s 
egg,’ and Glaser (’08), “A statistical study of mitosis and amito- 
sis in the entoderm of Fasciolaria.’ In both these studies it is 
interesting to find so striking a vindication of Child’s forecast. 
Patterson finds that at certain stages amitosis is quite as common 
as mitosis; and suggests ‘“‘it seems very probable that amitosis 
is the result of special physiological conditions, which create 
a stimulus to cell division,. . . . whatever factors are in- 
volved in bringing about the rapid growth of any region would seem 
to be concerned in causing amitosis.’”’ This affords an interesting 
agreement with the suggestion made by G. T. Hargitt, as quoted 
above. Glaser also concludes ‘‘that amitosis plays in this in- 
stance ’’(Fasciolaria) ‘‘an important, if not the chief part in the 
differentiation of a definitive tissue.”’ 
