CRYSTALLINE STYLE OF LAMELLIBRANCHS 61 



The nutriment taken into the stomach he believed to be mixed 

 with the style substance, carried to the hepatopancreas and 

 there digested. The course of the color granules was traced 

 into the hepatopancreas, back to the stomach, and thence to the 

 intestine. He believed that the style might serve as a reserve of 

 nutriment in the Unionidae during hibernation, but that in marine 

 forms this nutriment would be superfluous and therefore thrown 

 away. Matthias ('14) in discussing List's idea of superfluous 

 nutriment, considers that the mussels with all their ascribed 

 stupidity are not so utterly ' stumpfsinnig' that they would 

 willingly throw out the nutriment which they had so painstak- 

 ingly gathered. 



E. Relation to the organs of generation aiid the process of re- 

 production. De Heide (1686) thought the style might serve 

 some purpose in the act of generation, but gave no reason for his 

 belief. Poli (1791) advanced the same theory, also without any 

 "evidence in its support. In later years both of these investi- 

 gators abandoned this interpretation of the function of the 

 style. 



After nearly two hundred years this rejected theory was again 

 advocated by Cailliaud ('56). He held the Pholadidae to be 

 hermaphroditic (since disproved) and that the style served some 

 function during fecundation. Carus ('18) believed that the style 

 might have some connection with the sex function. 



Hoffmann ('14) following Stempell ('98), claimed to have ascer- 

 tained a reciprocal relation existing between the gastric shield 

 and the sexual organs. Comparing the mass of the gonad, the 

 gastric shield, and the style, he concluded that the shield was 

 not as well developed in males and females with mature gonads 

 as in a male specimen where the testes were immature. 



F. Serves as a means of transport for the nutriment; lubricating 

 function of the style. Although the conclusions of Barrois 

 ('89-90) place his work under this head, it must be said in all 

 fairness that his treatise on the crystalline style of the lamelli- 

 branchs is the most comprehensive and accurate contribution 

 to the subject which thus far has appeared. Many subsequent 

 workers have evidently paid but little heed to it,, his results 



