THE EGG OF THE DOMESTIC CAT 



153 



chance or arbitrary di\ision of labor, since the average number 

 of eggs discharged is not far from four, that anything but a very 

 guarded statement of alternation in functioning seems rash. 



Approaching the same subject from another point of view, the 

 following table in which a comparison is instituted between the 

 number of follicles recently ruptured and the number of corpora 

 lutea corresponding to the last previous pregnancy shows that an 

 unequal manifestation of activity at one ovulation is likely to be 

 followed by a reversal in functioning at the next, but that there 

 are other factors concerned, so that unequal activity may follow 

 upon equal, or even that upon two successive occasions the same 

 ovary may discharge the larger number of eggs. 



Maturation and pairing 



The ovaries of half-grown kittens far from sexual maturity 

 show many eggs undergoing maturation. Those of one such 

 animal, for example, showed fourteen eggs with polar spindles, 

 a considerably larger number than is usually found in an adult. 

 This fact shows that maturation may be inaugurated without 

 pairing. The ovaries of animals killed at the beginning of heat 

 also ordinarily contain eggs either with the first polar spindle, or 

 second polar spindle accompanied by the first polar body. 



The question regarding the future of these eggs does not long 

 await an answer when once a true conception of the normal egg 



