PART I.J Further Changes in the Masses of Bioplast. 71 



appearance of a very delicate cell wall (Fig. 5). The granules contained within this 

 fluid ring now take on an active swarming motion exactly resembling that observed 

 in some common amoebae occurring in specimens of water, and in the cells of many 

 of the lower algae. The movement persists for some time, and then, either ceases, 

 leaving the 'bioplast apparently in the same condition in which it was previously, or 

 the outer wall of the cell ruptures, and the swarming granules escape (Fig. 5). Once 

 beyond the parent body and free in the fluid, they immediately become motionless, 

 and have never been observed to move again. What the nature of these particles is, 

 and to what their activity is due, remains uncertain, but they can, at all events, 

 hardly be regarded as bacterial germs, seeing that their period of activity is confined 

 to the period in which they are still contained within the parent bioplast. 



The result of the escape of the granules is to convert the formerly uniform, 

 granular, vacuolated bioplast into a body, consisting of a delicate cell-wall and a 

 nuclear mass which does not nearly equal the cell-wall in circumference. This mass 

 may remain more or less centrally situated, or, as more frequently occurs, it may 

 pass to one or other side, and may then escape partially or even entirely from the 

 cell-wall. The appearances naturally vary with the nature of the process which has 

 taken place. In those cases in which the nuclear mass remains central, the entire 

 body appears as a bright space bounded by a dark line, and containing a central 

 molecular mass, while in those in which it goes to the side or escapes through 

 the cell-wall, the bright space is left equally sharply defined from the surrounding 

 fluid, but is either crescentic or quite empty and circular. Probably the most 

 common appearance is that of a broad, bright, sharply defined crescent, the concavity 

 being formed by the portion of the nuclear mass which is still included within the 

 cell-wall, while the rest of it protrudes as a rounded mass exterior to it (Fig. 5), 

 but empty spaces with free masses of granules condensed or scattered in various 

 degrees are also abundantly present at this time. This escape or expulsion of the 

 contents of the cell may take place without any previous formation of a nuclear mass 

 and motile granules, but the result in any case is ultimately the same, and a series 

 of bright, sharply defined, more or less empty, hyaline capsules remains. 



This appearance varies with their situation : when free in the fluid they come 

 out as pure white, flat spaces with fine dark outlines ; whilst, when situated among 

 the corpuscles, they are usually delicately shaded. The persistence of these capsules 

 is wonderful, considering their extreme delicacy ; and the surrounding fluid does 

 not appear to enter them, or to cause them to collapse, although in some cases 

 there appears to be open flssures in them. The nuclear masses gradually disintegrate 

 after their exit, and are diffused through the fluid as flakes of molecular matter 

 (Fig. 5). 



Peculiar appearances are induced during the progress of the above changes in 

 those cases in which masses of cells have been embedded in the interspaces of the 

 clot, and in which the whole preparation has, as is sometimes the case, passed into 



