458 



Very similar results follow if strong solutions of salts are used. Thus 

 in a supersaturated solution of KNO3 the sperms remain for hours 

 folded up or with but incipient stages of unfolding. On the other 

 hand sperms in very large amounts of water soon swell up into greatly 

 distended spheres with the bowl projecting from one pole. That the 

 sperms expand at a certain stage of dilution of the natural spermatic 

 liquid and that strong salts retard or prevent this expansion seems 

 to be due to a purely osmotic factor such as is shown to controll the 

 forms of some other decapod sperms by the work of Koltzoff. 



The initial stages in unfolding seen from the lower side as in 



Figure 2a, show radiating curved lines which upon focussing can be 



traced some distance into the interior. Those lines seem to be clefts, 



or vertical plates, in the sperm-substance below the vesicle. Whether 



^ ij they are there before the sperm 



is acted upon by liquids was not 

 determined, since the normal 

 spermatic liquid is so refracting 

 that details in the sperm are not 

 readily made out. From a side 



Fig. 2. Beginnings of uncoiling of . ,, , , p 



a) Yiew of bottom, and b) view of vicw thosc early stagcs of ex- 

 side of a sperm. pansiou give the appearance of 



faint, rings or spirally wound 

 strands, Figure 2b, that look like highly refracting dots when seen 

 in optical section at the edges of the sperm. 



The spiral lines are quite at the surface and external to the bowl 

 about which they coil. The bottom of the bowl, which forms what we 

 have called the top of the sperm, seems to be free from these coiled 

 lines but the upper ends of these filaments are two fine to be traced. 

 These spirals are the arms of the sperm shown in Figures 5 and 6. 

 Each arm has an enlarged basal part that at first seems to be a ver- 

 tical plate but later changes to become a more cylindrical base which 

 is prolonged as the long terminal filament. The length of each arm is 

 about 30 f.1. The bases of the arms are the lowest parts of the spirals 

 and rise up gradually as they pass around the part of the sperm below 

 the bowl while the filaments of the arms are higher up and coil about 

 the bowl. The entire arm seems to make about one and one half re- 

 volutions so that its tip passes above its base and beyond it to one side. 



In a somewhat later stage of uncoiling spaces appear between the 

 arms and most attractive Swastika designs are presented as indicated 

 in Figure 3. 



These symmetrical figures are especially striking when the sperm is 



arms. 



