128 NOTES ON NEMAS 



Digones, amphigones and heterogones, and many syngones, are 

 dicystic. The word syncysty and its immediate relatives may be 

 used to designate the conditions present in parthenogenetic organisms, 

 in which single gonic cells (not zygotes, at least not in the ordinary 

 sense of the word) contain all the factors necessary to the production 

 of an individual. My (thus far theoretical) cryptogenetic organisms 

 are syncysts. 



5 



FUNCTIONS OF THE AMPHIDS 



My published observations emphasize the junction of each amphid, 

 by means of a duct, with a chain of internal lateral organs. Biitschli 

 and de Man each record an instance of definite outflow from the am- 

 phids. I now find this outflow in many different genera, when speci- 

 mens are fixed with Flemming solution; from a definite part of each 

 amphid there issues a coiled, or irregular "string" or "ribbon," the volume 

 of which precludes attributing it to an evagination. Occasionally an 

 "axis" is seen in the "string," but nothing warrants the belief that 

 this "axis" is other than a coagulation phenomenon, just as it is in the 

 similar coagulation "strings" occasionally seen at the spinneret. I 

 mention evagination because some investigators declare the amphids 

 to be supplied with special nerves, and because it is conceivable that 

 death spasms might so act on a nerve organ as to cause an evagination. 

 However, my numerous observations do not at all support the idea 

 that the appearances I have studied are evaginations. In many cases 

 I have traced inward and backward from the amphids structures 

 whose histology in no way suggests nerve organs, but does correspond 

 in every respect with the histology of ducts, especially those of nemas. 



These new observations of mine afford, I think, a better basis for 

 speculation as to the function of the amphids, and lead away from the 

 idea that they are simply organs of sensation. I observe in Monon- 

 chus, and other genera, that invariably there is an innervated papilla 

 very close to the amphid. May not confusion have arisen here 

 through different observers having studied similar-looking, but un- 

 related structures? 



I have instances of amphids so obscure that i would have been im- 

 possible to discover them had it not been for the issuance from them 

 during fixation of the fluid matter described. 



