114 AREOLAR TISSUE. 
dition in which they immediately attract attention im the 
investigation of that tissue in the foetus. We shall in the next 
place consider the earlier, and then the subsequent stages of 
their development. In addition to the corpuscles before men- 
tioned, others may be seen in very young areolar tissue, which 
are not elongated into fibres, but are more or less round. They 
are granulous and contain a nucleus with nucleoli, and as they 
present all the stages of transition up to those cells which are 
prolonged into fibres, we must regard them as being the un- 
developed fibre-cells. Various forms of them are delineated 
in pl. III, fig. 6. I will not assert that all round cells in 
foetal areolar tissue are young fibre-cells; for we _ shall 
presently become acquainted with some which are not. It 
is only after the commencement of the process of acumina- 
tion that the young fibre-cells can be distinguished from these; 
in the earliest state, when they are as yet quite round, almost 
all cells are alike. It is difficult to determine positively 
whether or not these cells are formed around a previously 
existing nucleus ; probably, however, such is the case, as there 
are no cells to be seen without nuclei, although there are many 
nuclei observed without investing cells. 
The following, then, are the results of our investigation into 
the progress of development of areolar tissue, in so far as 
we have as yet pursued it. In the first place, small round 
cells are formed (probably around a previously existing 
nucleus), in the structureless jelly-like cytoblastema of the 
tissue. The cells, furnished with the characteristic nucleus, 
become acuminated in two opposite directions, and these acumi- 
nations elongate into fibres, that sometimes give off branches, 
and at length split into fasciculi of extremely minute fibres, 
which, in the early stage, cannot be distinctly perceived to be 
insulated. As development proceeds, the splitting of the two prin- 
cipal fibres, issuing from the body of the cell into a bundle of 
more minute fibres, continually advances nearer towards the cell, 
so that, at a later period, a fasciculus of fibres issues immediately 
from the body of the cell (see pl. III, fig. 7.) At a subsequent 
period, this process of splitting reaches as far as the nucleus, 
and at length goes quite through the body of the cell, 
and the nucleus then lies merely upon a fasciculus of 
fibres. At the same time the fibres in the progress of de- 
