SPERMATIC PARTICLES. 35 



are formed inside parent-vesicles, and, according to Kolliker, developed under /re differ- 

 ent types ; and, notwithstanding these changes have been described with a detail indica- 

 tive of indefatigable labor, vet those preliminary changes which seem, as it were to 

 mark the philosophy of the whole process, and which make the whole analoo^ous to the 

 corresponding function of the other sex, — all this seems to have been overlooked or 

 if perceived, to have been passed over without recognizing their significant value. 



Early in 1849, Dr. Charles Robin of Paris presented to the Academie des Sciences a 

 memoir entitled (as translated), " The Existence of an Ovum as well in the Male as 

 in the Female of Plants and Animals ; producing, in the one case Spermatozoa, in the 

 other the Primitive Cells of the Embryo." This memoir was submitted to a commission, 

 consisting of MM. Serres, Dumas, and Milne-Edwards, and their report may be found 

 in the Comptes Rendus, 1849. The grand fiict of the memoir is the announcement 

 of the fact of the segmentation of the nucleus of the n)ale sperm-cell, as well as of the 

 female ovarian cell of plants and animals, preceding the elimination of their special 

 products. The memoir had more a botanical than a zoological import, because the data 

 on which it rested appeared to be furnished almost entirely from vegetable, instead of 

 animal morphology. In fact, his support of these views with reference to the sperm- 

 cells of animals appears referrible to the observations of M. Reichert * upon the 

 Spermatozoa of Strongyhis auricularis and Ascaris acuminata. Also upon observations 

 of his own upon one of the Acalephs, Rhizostoma Cucieri. 



If M. Robin's inferences were based upon his paucity of observation alone, they cer- 

 tainly were not scientifically warranted, considering that M. Kolliker had then just pub- 

 lished his memoir, in which there appeared no less than five dissimilar methods by which 

 the spermatic particles were formed in the parent vesicles. The merit of a broad sugges- 

 tion, however, certainly belongs to Robin, and I am free to admit that I have borrowed 

 it from him ; but its application, and the testing of its correctness, traced by innu- 

 merable details throughout the four classes of the vertebrated animals, I must humbly 

 claim for myself. And, in so doing, I have not relied upon the observations of Wagner 

 or Kolliker, but have traversed the whole field myself In this way, I have been able 

 to perceive what I think to be important errors made by others, as well as to travel new 

 and unexplored grounds. I say this with that humility which belongs to all scientific 



* It is quite remarkable that Reichert, whose observations Robin quotes in support of his theory, declares 

 that this segmentation of the vitellus (the very virtue of the whole) is " unc sorte d'illusion produite par la mise 

 en liberie de vesicles preexistantes, emboitees les unes dans les autres." Quoted from Longet's Traiie de 

 Physiologic, in De la Generation, p. 144, where reference is made to Reichert, Miiller's Arcliiv, 1841, 

 p. 5-23. 



