SOME SPINNING ACTIVITIES OF PROTOPLASM 
IN STARBISH AND SEA-URCHIN, EGGS. 
GWENDOLEN FOULKE ANDREWS. 
THE observations recorded here were begun at the Marine 
Biological Laboratory of Wood’s Holl, in the summer of 1893. 
For use of an “investigator's room” and other privileges 
enjoyed there for the third time, I am indebted to the kind- 
ness of the Director, Dr. Whitman. 
While watching the protoplasm of developing starfish and 
sea-urchin eggs under very high powers, certain curious filose 
phenomena restimulated an interest that had for years con- 
cerned itself much with the “thread-forming,” “filose,” or, as 
I prefer to call them, the spzznzng activities of the living sub- 
stance, especially as found among the Protozoa, where they are 
of widespread occurrence outside the extremely large group of 
protoplasts in which they are characteristic phenomena. 
The eggs in which the supposedly typical phenomena were 
watched were normal, so far as could be discovered by a series 
of comparative observations and experiments on many other 
specimens, some of which developed normally into quite ad- 
vanced stages. Great care was used to make little or no com- 
pression on these eggs, to keep the water fresh and plentiful 
about them, to maintain an even temperature, and to hold them 
but a few moments at a time under observation. 
Other cases which were carelessly dealt with, or which were 
immature, or over-fertilized, showed plainly an abnormal state 
of their substance, which was visible in spinnings of a decidedly 
different character from those of the normal specimens. These 
cases were followed closely for long periods, and normal speci- 
mens were made abnormal by heat, or pressure, or confinement, 
so as to learn the peculiarities of such states, and, if possible, 
distinguish with regard to the spinning phenomena between 
these and the normal condition. 
