STUDIES ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF REPRODUCTION 

 IN THE DOMESTIC FOWL. VIII. ON SOME PHYSI- 

 OLOGICAL EFFECTS OF LIGATION, SECTION, 

 OR REMOVAL OF THE OVIDUCTi 



RAYMOND PEARL AND MAYNIE R. CURTIS 



For several years there have been in progress at this Labora- 

 tory experiments deaUng with various phases of the physiology 

 of egg production. Among the reports of these investigations 

 already published are several which deal with the physiology 

 of the oviduct. A few of the more important of the results al- 

 ready obtained may be reviewed briefly here, in order to show 

 more clearly the relation to them of the present findings. 



1. Albumen, secretion is not confined, as was formerly sup- 

 posed, to the albumen secreting region of the oviduct, but also 

 takes place in the isthmus and uterus. It is in fact probably 

 a general function of the entire oviduct (Pearl and Curtis '12, 

 and Surface '12). 



2. There is some good evidence that for any part of the 

 oviduct the effective stimulus to secretion is mechanical. Tar- 

 chanoff ('84) and Weidenfeld ('05) showed that a normal set 

 of egg envelopes including chalazae, albumen, egg membrane 

 and shell may be formed around an artificial yolk (wood, rubber, 

 or amber bead). This result has been confirmed at this Lab- 

 oratory with artificial yolks of agar-agar. Our experiments 

 on this point have never been described in detail. The results 

 were briefly stated in a previous paper (Curtis '14b). These 

 experiments also agree with those of Tarchanoff that this re- 

 sult does not always follow the introduction of an artificial 

 yolk into an active oviduct. The other necessary conditions 



1 Papers from the Biological Laboratory of the Maine Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, No. 68. 



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