April 1892.] THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 393 



Verworn * holds, however, that a nucleus has nothing to 

 do with the movements of the body-plasm, and believes 

 enucleated masses of plasm to perform exactly the same 

 movements as nucleated masses do. 



Eimert considers the nucleus in general as that organ of 

 the cell which originates and governs the processes of life, 

 and believes it to act in unicellular animals as a central 

 nervous organ, and points out that also in the higher 

 animals the nucleus plays a very important part as a centre 

 of nerve-force, for in ganglion-cells the nuclei reach an 

 enormous size ; in Beroe a nerve-fibril may be traced from 

 the nucleolus of one nucleus to the nucleoli of all the other 

 nuclei which lie on the road of the fibril ; in Medusa the 

 nerve-fibres pass in the sensory cells through the nucleoli, 

 and end ultimately in the cilia ; in non-sensory cells, as 

 muscle-cells and epidermis, the nerves terminate in nuclei ; 

 and in the nerve-cells the nerve-fibrils can be seen to 

 radiate out from the nucleoli, and to form a fibrillar network 

 in the nucleus. 



A similar network is said to occur also in the germinal 

 vesicle of the egg-cell, due to fibrils radiating out from the 

 germinal spot. It is believed that these radiating fibres 

 serve in the egg, at first, as paths of nourishment, and that 

 later on, due to firming or the consolidation of these strands, 

 they become transformed into nerve-fibrils. 



The author further states that these strands correspond to 

 Weismann's idioplasm, i.e., to that firm substance which 

 conveys the characters of the species from generation to 

 generation. 



Brass' ;j; book I have not been able to procure, and am 

 therefore unable to state which views are held by the author. 



Fayod, in the above quoted paper, I understand to have 

 made out that the hyaloplasm (Hofmeister) of a cell serves 

 as the condenser of oxygen, i.e., that it plays the part of a 

 respiratory organ, and that of the two spirofibrilles surround- 

 ing each axis, one serves as a conductor of elaborated 

 material, while the other is a channel for uuelaborated 

 substances. 



* Verworn, Psycho-physiolosische Protistenstudien, Jena, 1889. 



t Organic Evolution, 1890, Engl. TransL, p. 349. 



t Brass, Die Zelle das Element d. organischen Welt, Leipzig, 1889. 



TRANS. BOT. SOC. EDIN. VOL. SIX. 2 G 



