BIHANG TILL K. SV. VET.-AKAD. HANDL. BAND 27. AFD. IV. N:0 G. 33 



In the former I have seen immense masses of oval or 

 elongate plasma-cells with spheres, but never cells with 

 vacuoles (Pl. II, fig. 17). In a single section of such a small 

 protuberance I counted more than one hundred cells with 

 spheres. Considering that a complete series comprises thirty 

 sections or more, we find that more than 3,000 wander-cells 

 witli spheres are amassed in this very insignificant promi- 

 nence. If we pay due attention to the fact that similar 

 plasma-cells are scattered sparingly in the tissues, except in 

 these very places where a degeneration goes on, it becomes 

 evident that a reason must exist why they aggregate just 

 there. Unquestionably they have as their purpose to destroy 

 and devour tissues reduced in vital power. Nevertheless, I 

 do not think that the cells with spheres are the only effec- 

 tive power in this work of destruction, because I have ob- 

 served in such places dusters of the above mentioned "fat- 

 cells" with a very reduced uneven nucleus. Evidently, here 

 a fatty degeneration also plays an important part in the act 

 of absorbing tissues, though I believe that the wander-cells 

 with spheres execute the essential work. 



If we then turn our attention to the process which goes 

 on during the devouring of eggs within the female tubes, we 

 find that the cells with spheres never play any part in their 

 absorption. Here, on the contrary, the cells with vacuoles occur 

 in great abundance (PL II, fig. 18, 19). They not only arrange 

 themselves in the circumference of the ovum outside the 

 follicular membrane, but a great number of them have pene- 

 trated this membrane and wandered within the deutoplasm 

 in order to devour it. I am sure I do not exaggerate when 

 I estimate the number of such cells which have found their 

 way into certain eggs at more than hundred. Through their 

 agency, the deutoplasm at last becomes entirely removed. On 

 plate II fig. 19 a part of a section of an egg is drawn, show- 

 ing a number of amoeboid cells with large irregular vacuo- 

 les and blackish coloured granules. By chance the section 

 has cut the egg exactly where a migration of cells takes 

 place through the follicular membrane. Wander-cells of quite 

 the same appearance are abundantly met with in the väst 

 lacunar system which is filled with blood-liquid and enclosed 

 within the walls of the genital tubes. 



