128 William A. Kepuer. 



and oocytes are quite unlike what Will believed it to be. Giardina 

 describes and figures clearly that an oocyte and its attending group of 

 nurse cells arise by a series of differential mitoses from a primordial 

 reproductive element of the terminal chamber. 



The peculiar features shown in Fig, 7 are found only at the distal 

 end of the terminal chamber. They suggest different stages in the 

 degeneration of certain cells (Fig. 7, a and b). The oocytes in this 

 region tend to be vacuolated about the periphery and are unusually 

 large. (Compare Figs. 2 and 7.) 



The specimens of Scolia dubia were taken very late in their breed- 

 ing season. It is not probable that all the contents of the terminal 

 chamber would be demanded by the rapidly closing season. Thi^ 

 would lead us to expect degeneration phenomena within the distal 

 end of the terminal chamber. 



Fig. 7 shows an apparent relation of position existing between one 

 of the unusually large oocytes and a mass of degeneration products. 

 This is but accidental ; for many such bodies are found lying remote 

 from any oocyte. These products in Scolia dubia, therefore, are 

 considered to have nothing to do with the nutrition of the oocyte as 

 De Bruyne in the above quotation suggests, but to be mere degenera- 

 tion products concomitant with the close of the season. 



Besides the degeneration cells the terminal chamber contains the 

 primordial elements of future follicle epithelium, young nurse cells 

 and young ova or oocytes. 



Throughout the history of the ovum within the ovary tubule its size 

 increases greatly. The smallest and youngest egg cells within the 

 terminal chamber are about 25 microns long and 20 microns thick. 

 They rapidly grow during their passage down the tubule until they 

 become 1,000 microns long by 350 microns wide. They are through- 

 out this growth highly plastic and readily conform to any irregulari- 

 ties of surface. 



During this remarkable growth of the cell body the nucleus 

 remains, so far as comparative measurements of different nuclei 

 show, constant in size. The nuclear contents are highly achromatic 

 except for an irregular mass of chromatin which is always eccentric- 

 ally situated. This mass is least assembled in the youngest nuclei. 



