1897] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 87 



wise view, some show very markedly longitudinal stria- 

 tions, the coarse ones. In the snake some peculiar con- 

 ditions were found. Two kinds of fibre shown in tran- 

 section, one typical coarse grained with 3-4 nuclei, 

 another very dense with 25-35 nuclei in it. Examina- 

 tion of longisection shows these to belong to one fibre, 

 one structure passing abruptly into the other. The 

 nuclei are small round bodies instead of oval, the only 

 suggestion as present is that it may be some especial 

 form of ending. 



The general conclusions reached are that in nuclei as 

 in blood, generalized forms of animals have large ele- 

 ments, specialized small, in spite of greater muscular 

 power in latter. The difference in location of nuclei may 

 be explained by the mechanical disadvantage of a num- 

 ber of non-contractile masses among the contractile ma- 

 terial. They interfere with the straight pull, hence in most 

 differentiated, active animals (birds and mammals) the 

 nuclei are "pushed to the wall," making the contractile 

 force all available for locomotion instead of being some- 

 what dissipated by oblique pulls. 



This general law is deduced, — the more generalized the 

 animal the larger the tissue elements, the more highly 

 specialized the smaller are the elements. Exceptions oc- 

 cur of course, but they only serve to prove the rule. Only 

 two tissues have been discussed here, but an interestino- 

 field of work is opened by this treatment of these com- 

 ponent parts of animals by the same method as have long 

 been applied to the study of comparative anatomy. 



DISCUSSION. 



BEFOEE THE AMERICAN MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 



Professor S. H. Gage— This subject that has been gone over often has had 

 a little new life put into it. Miss Claypole has considered it from the phy- 

 siological instead of from the mechanical standpoint. There are at the pres- 

 ent day two great schools of physiologists, those that believe physiology is 

 refined mechanics, and those that believe it is something more than ordinary 

 mechanics, 



