408 DR. E. KLEIN. 



fatty nature. In the fresh state they correspond in appear- 

 ance to fat-globules, and when treated with alcohol and 

 chloroform are, except a limiting outline, entirely dissolved. 

 Hence, in sections treated with alcohol and oil of cloves, these 

 cells appear filled with perfectly transparent, well-defined 

 circles closely pressed against one another (see fig. 1, Plate 

 XVni). These are the cells which in the fresh state (on 

 the warm stage) while moving are capable of ejecting the 

 fat-globules, as stated above. It thus becomes intelligible 

 how also in the living animal these cells, being situated 

 nearest to the duct, are capable of at once ejecting on to the 

 surface of the skin their fatty secretion. And indeed we 

 find in sections many ducts filled with the same fatty matter. 

 The question arises whether this ejection of the fat-globules 

 represents the sole manner of " secretion," or whether this 

 process (viz, " secretion ") is associated, as in the sebaceous 

 glands of mammals, with the expulsion of fat-globules and 

 the cell itself. 



I am inclined to think that both are possible; under quiet, 

 normal conditions, I presume secretion is carried out by the 

 cells next the duct ejecting their contents. Under violent 

 struggles, however, when all the muscles of the tail are in 

 very active contraction, the continuous beautiful coat of 

 unstriped muscle fibres — seen by Eberth in frogs, and especi- 

 ally by Leydig in the glands of the cloaca of salamandrinae 

 as surrounding the gland-sac — by its contraction will be 

 capable of effecting a discharge of the cells themselves next 

 the duct. If a piece of tail (while living) be thrown into a 

 hardening fiuid it is for some time actively moving, and the 

 surface of the epidermis becomes covered with minute white 

 spots. Sections prove that these are discharged gland-cells 

 and their secretions lying at the mouth of the ducts. 



The facts that all cells lining these saccular glands show 

 amoeboid movement on the warm stage, further, the unequal 

 size of these cells (some are many times bigger than others), 

 and some of theifi containing two nuclei, indicate that re- 

 production is going on amongst them, in order that those 

 that become lost may be replaced by others. 



Leydig states (1. c, p. 138) that the epidermis of all am- 

 phibian animals, like that of all other vertebrates, consists 

 of a stratum corneum and rete mucosum. 



A section through the skin (of the tail) of newt [Triton 

 cristatus) shows that this is not the case, inasmuch as the 

 epidermis does not contain anything of a stratum corneum, 

 as generally understood, and also by Leydig. In a trans- 



