1 82 MUNSON. [Vol. XV. 



a cytoplasmic condensation in the sense of Auerbach, nor as 

 a funnel-shaped tube in the sense of Balbiani, but rather as 

 an interfilar digestive fluid in the sense of Scharff, without the 

 bodily migration of nucleoli as held by him ; the granular 

 phases being due to the entrance of food material, as held by 

 Korschelt in the insect egg, and being the result of a combina- 

 tion of a nucleolar product with the nutritive material. 



The result of this combination is the metaplasm which later 

 becomes distributed throughout the body of the egg or else 

 collected around the centrosome and sphere. 



It is evident, however, that the internal zone is closely 

 related to the centrosome and sphere ; and our next problem 

 will be to consider what this relation may be. A relation of 

 some kind has been pointed out by Balbiani, Bambeke, Oscar 

 Schultze, Henneguy ('93), and Auerbach, and is evident from 

 their figures as well as from PL XIII, Fig. 16; PI. XIV, Figs. 

 19-22, 24, 48, in the egg of Limulus. 



In the case of the sperm cell, Auerbach considers the spher- 

 ical "Nebenkern" as a further condensation of the inner zone. 

 He, however, can give no reason why such a condensation 

 takes place at one place rather than at another ; and if I 

 understand him rightly, he does not insist on a structural rela- 

 tion of the cytoreticulum that might serve as a basis for such 

 a condensation. 



In the case of the other observers mentioned above, it 

 would seem that they, in a somewhat similar manner, regard 

 the body — vitelline-body of Balbiani — as a fortuitous aggre- 

 gation of the granules of the internal zone, the granules being 

 regarded either as extruded chromatin or as disintegrated 

 migrating nucleoli. 



Against such a fortuitous aggregation can be urged the 

 observation of Balbiani himself, in the case of Geophilus, where 

 a structural body in the form of a centrosome, sphere and 

 aster, is clearly figured and described, in the midst of 

 amorphous granules supposed to be derived from the germinal 

 vesicle. Balbiani does not prove that this sphere and aster 

 originate from the amorphous granules. Furthermore, Mer- 

 tens ('93) has conclusively shown that a centrosome and sphere 



