Now2Z:). SPINVING ACTIVITIES OF PROTOPLASM. 373 
The rays do not have always a radial direction as to the egg, 
not even at the moment of their formation, but may make with 
the surface of the cell almost any angle, even so acute an one 
as to be actually tangential. 
They are moved slowly at times, as if from a hinge, or ball- 
and-socket joint, at their base and point of termination in the 
egg pellicle. They are seen also to bend sharply and suddenly 
at some point of their length, forming thus angles more or 
less approaching right angles. And at all points of their 
length they freely interchange varying states of viscosity ; 
being here or there in the different filaments, or here or there 
at different points in the same filament, either in a state of 
fluid flux, or stiffly viscid to a point which may reach elastic 
rigidity. 
The spinnings from the pellicle continue without intermis- 
sion during all the internal preparations for caryokinesis, and 
for cell division, showing no constraint during aster formation, 
nor even in actual cleavage, except for a moment just before 
actual splitting of the surface begins, and just along the 
region, or coming path, of that splitting, for here they are 
more or less completely withdrawn. 
As external cleavage begins, the rays nearest the actual split- 
ting line show usually some agitated-looking bendings about, 
both from their base and along their course. Sometimes a quiv- 
ering movement runs along them, with roughenings of the ray 
outlines exactly as is seen often in Heliozoa. At other times, 
in the earlier stages of the egg’s history, such phenomena 
were seen from moment to moment in different rays at other 
regions. 
The split of the first cleavage is now visible as a triangular 
cleft in the optical contour of the egg. In the moment this 
appears, there is a visible haste in the protoplasm of the 
rounded, divergent sides of the two cells in process of forma- 
tion, to renew the spinning activities. The rounded optical 
edges may show slight amoeboid modulation ; and then, rap- 
idly starting up, a number of processes extend themselves 
from each opposing surface, towards the other. This is 
quickly reached, for there is both haste and directness of 
