1901) MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 191 
band and lateral fibres enclosing a dense homogeneous 
or finely granular portion. The proportions of the trian- 
gle vary greatly from the beginning of the band to its 
"end in the pharynx. 
Tracing these fibres back from the mouth-region around 
the peristome into the neck, their origin is found in a 
stout, longitudinally striated, deeply staining fibre, which 
arises from a branching base at the center of the attach- 
ment disc and extends diagonally through the neck to the 
beginning of the oral band, where it gives off a branch to 
each end of each basal band. The first branches given off 
are coarse and oblique, the later ones fine and nearly per- 
pendicular to the basal fibre. 
This stout neck fibre with its oral prolongation and 
branches is somewhat anisotropic, fibrous, and contrac- 
tile. The only clearly differentiating stain found for it 
is iron-hematoxlin ; second to this was Mayer’s picro-car- 
mine, the material being left in the stain for forty-eight 
hours. In macerations, the fibre with its various branches 
is the most resistant part of the body. Potassium bi- 
chromate (one to three per cent) will in a few seconds, 
aided by slight tapping on the cover-glass, dissolve away 
the alveolar entoplasm and the pellicula, leaving the in- 
ner layers of the attachment disc with cilia, the neck fi- 
bres and the oral band with cilia, the skeleton of the ani- 
mal. Similar results were attained with pepsin and pep- 
tone solutions, one-tenth per cent formalin, and even 
with fresh water. The neck fibre is faintly visible in life, 
and is plainly seen in any macerating or fixing fluid be- 
fore the cilia of the attachment disc and pharynx cease 
to vibrate. These facts clearly demonstrate that the fibre 
and its divisions so plainly shown in iron-hematoxylin 
stained sections are not artifacts. 
PERSONAL.—E, G. Eberle of Dallas, Texas, is President 
of the Texas State Pharmaceutical Association for 1902, 
