CHAPTER VII 



REPRODUCTION 



Karyokinesis A Vital Process Cell-Division Is it 

 Mechanical ? Experimental Embryology. 



WE have already seen that one of the leading 

 characteristics of living things is their power 

 to reproduce themselves ; to increase and 

 multiply. In the case of the Amoeba this 

 process is of the simplest nature, for from the 

 single individual are formed two new members 

 of the race, neither being strictly speaking 

 mother nor daughter. 



In the great majority of cases and in all the 

 higher animals and plants reproduction takes 

 place as the consequence of the fusion of ele- 

 ments derived respectively from the male and_ 

 the female which combine to form a single cell 

 from which are derived, by successive divi- 

 sions, all the cells, however many and however 

 differentiated from one another, of which the 

 adult body is built up. 



In certain cases no remarkable phenomena 

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