334 A, A. W. HUBRECHT. 
sphere. Sometimes it is broader at one point than at another. 
Roughly speaking it might be thus indicated that the fibrillar 
decidual tissue is stretched in a direction perpendicular to that 
of the fibres. The consequence is an irregular reticular aspect 
instead of the compact fibres that normally form this tissue. 
At the same time the nuclei are drawn asunder, there being 
fewer of them on the same square surface than in the unaltered 
fibrillar tissue. The staining reagents give a much lighter 
tint to this region, for the very reason that the stainable 
material is so much further apart. Evidence that it is indeed 
the diminished compactness that gives its character to this 
part of the fibrillar decidual tissue is afforded by the fact that 
the vessels with perivascular proliferation sheaths also share in 
it. The proliferated cells are wider apart, as if their mutual 
cohesion had diminished. In the vessels that have no thick 
cellular sheaths no appreciable change is noticed as they pass 
through this reticular portion ; their endothelial lining remains 
distinct. When the vessels pass from the reticular layer into 
the trophospongia it was above indicated that the perivascular 
layer, when present, appears to fuse with the cellular matter 
of the trophospongia. It should be noted that this was only 
noticed in the allantoidean, never in the omphaloidean tropho- 
sphere. It must be acknowledged that the reticular, loosened 
aspect of the layer here described gives some support to the as- 
sumption that some connection might exist between the sup- 
posed phagocytical action of the deciduofracts and this change 
in the contiguous layer of the decidua. There is no ground to 
suppose that it is in any way the mode of preparation that lessens 
the cohesion of this inner layer. In all the most differently 
treated preparations I have found it in a greater or lesser 
degree, that was however quite independent of the mode of 
preparation. Fig. 44 D’ will give an adequate idea of the 
character of the layer here described. The boundary line 
between it and the unaltered fibrillar decidual tissue is usually 
a sharp one. 
We have finally to consider the phenomena that take place 
in the mucosa, as far as it is not directly concerned in the 
