PARTS CONCERNED IN REPRODUCTION. 231 



Avorms, they are motionless and of various forms, as specu- 

 late, clavate, elliptical, semi-lunar, &c. In the majority of 

 animals these corpuscules are suspended in a peculiar 

 seminal liquor, but this is wanting in many Insects, Worms, 

 and other Invertebrata.* 



The Germinal Corpuscules in Vegetables are — 



In the lower Cryptogamia the condensed granular 

 contents of certain cells, which in the Proto- 

 phyta are indistinguishable from the sperma- 

 tic element. 

 In the higher Cryptogamia the central corpuscules 



of the structures termed arche2:onia. 

 In the Flowering plants, protoplasmic corpuscules 

 lying within the embryo-sac, or central cavity 

 of the ovule. 

 In the Animal King-dom the almost universal arrano;e- 

 ment is a nucleated cell, termed the germinal vesicle, occu- 

 pying the interior of a larger one knoA\Ti as the ovum. 



In both sexes there is reason to believe that the ultimate 

 reproductive corpuscules are essentially mere homogeneous 

 particles of the fundamental organic matter or protoplasm 

 of the species, but so related to it and to each other, that 

 neither is complete in itself, the conjunction of the 

 two being required to constitute a true representative of 

 the species. They are often termed cells, but a cell-wall is 

 certainly not always present, and when present does not 

 appear to be essential, but to serve only for the elaboration 

 or protection of the real reproductive matter which it con- 

 tains ; for the true end of the latter cannot be attained till 

 the impediment which the wall offers to the fusion of the 

 corpuscules of opposite sexes is removed by its deliquescence, 

 rupture, or penetration. This, indeed, is generally ad- 



* Wagner and Leuckart, in Cyclopoedia of Anatomy and PLysiology, 

 Vol. III., article, " Semen." 



