344, A. A. W. HUBRECHT. 
again arises, whether the outer layer of the trophosphere, 
which is far from being intimately fused with the external 
mucosa, and is characterised by the presence of the deciduo- 
fracts, may not be said to have a direct destructive influence 
on that mucosa, in which process the deciduofracts might be 
expected to play the part of phagocytes, attacking the proto- 
plasmic material in their neighbourhood. The field of specu- 
lation here opened cannot be further explored by myself. So 
much is certain, that the preserved deciduofracts of the pre- 
parations have. all the appearance of taking up into their pro- 
toplasm fragments of cellular and nuclear matters, sometimes 
even blood-corpuscles. Experiments with living deciduofracts 
might, under favorable conditions, throw more light on their 
supposed phagocytic properties. 
In support of the view that they act in this destructive way 
the appearance of the decidual tissue immediately contiguous 
with the deciduofracts may be cited. In transverse sections 
there is a very sharp boundary line between the outer decidual 
tissue and the trophosphere. Generally this line is not straight, 
but very much indented and irregularly broken, as if the 
decidual proliferation were subject to a process of erosion. 
The decidual cells along this boundary line lose their sharp 
coutours, they become more transparent, their nucleus fades 
or appears to be fragmented, and in very numerous instances 
could I notice that the large cells which I have designated as 
deciduofracts, and which are, as was just mentioned, imme- 
diately contiguous, enclose nuclei or fragments of these in 
their protoplasm which entirely resembled such fragments of 
decidual cells. In one word, we find the most conclusive 
traces of a process of resorption of the decidual tissue, the 
protoplasm becoming more or less liquefied, the nuclei par- 
taking in this dissolution or being bodily transferred into the 
protoplasm of the deciduofracts, where they have all the 
appearance of food-particles enclosed in a vacuole, the deci- 
duofracts representing so many phagocytes. 
Very instructive are those sections where this process of 
erosion of the decidua has just proceeded so far as to break 
