530 W. B. HARDY. 



singularly hyaline and structureless even with the highest 

 powers ; they do not stain at all with picro- carmine or hsema- 

 toxylin, but take a deep tinge with aniline blue and methyl 

 green. 



They are of a complex character chemically, with probably 

 a proteid basis. That they are not wholly proteid is, I think, 

 shown by the fact that the coloration obtained with the xan- 

 thoproteic reaction, and with acidulated ferrocyanide of potas- 

 sium and ferric chloride, is never intense though it is sufficiently 

 distinct. Neither iodine nor iodine and sulphuric acid give 

 distinctive results. They are also not of a fatty nature, for 

 exposure for many hours to hot turpentine fails to materially 

 change them. These are not only the most abundant, but 

 the most permanent nutritive spheres. 



The second class of bodies is markedly distinct from those 

 just mentioned, and they occur sometimes in considerable 

 abundance. They are perhaps most noticeable at the close of 

 a digestive act. They measure as a rule 12 /x in diameter, 

 and are spherical bodies, each embedded in a vacuole of a 

 vacuolate cell, which may or may not contain at the same time 

 the small nutritive spheres. Like the latter they are some- 

 times homogeneous bodies showing no internal structure, 

 and then tiiey stain very intensely with picro-carmiue (fig. 

 27). But they may be also found composed half of intensely 

 staining homogeneous material, and half of more turbid 

 material which stains scarcely at all (fig. 28). In yet other 

 cases the intensely staining material is reduced to a small 

 spherical nodule or patch placed excentrically on the surface 

 of the sphere. There can be no doubt that these are various 

 stages in the formation or destruction of the same bodies, but 

 I do not think that the evidence at my disposal justifies me in 

 deciding which stage is which. As a general rule, however, the 

 smallest of these bodies, perhaps but little larger than the first- 

 mentioned type of nutritive sphere, are homogeneous and deeply 

 staining, while without exception the largest forms are those 

 with the deeply-staining material reduced to an excentrically 

 placed bleb. These bodies resemble in some respects the yolk 



