MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 99 
mind the condition in young egg cells, where the nucleus attains a rel- 
atively enormous size. This great size of the nucleus in young egg cells 
is explained by Korschelt (’89, p. 92) as due to its participation in the 
trophic activity of the cell: “Sein grösster Umfang fällt in die Zeit des 
energischen Wachsthums der Eizelle.” So in the gemmiparous regions 
the large size of the nuclei must be considered as connected with the 
growth of the cells. 
But if the growth of the cells is accompanied by a rapid ingestion of 
food material (which the larger nucleus implies), some evidence of that 
fact should be observed in the cells themselves in the presence of food 
granules. Such food material in rapidly growing ovarian egg cells lies 
near the nucleus, Stuhlmann (’87, pp. 13, 14) describes such a condi- 
tion in the ovary of Zoarces. “Neben dem Keimbläschen, jedoch ein 
klein wenig von seiner Membran entfernt, bilden sich an verschiedenen 
Stellen jetzt eigentiimliche Verdichtungen des Protoplasmas, die sich 
ein wenig stärker mit Saffranin färben als das Zellplasma.”” Such a 
thickening of the protoplasma is represented in the figures as minute 
granules, Korschelt (’89, pp. 123-125) mentions several other such 
instances. 
It has seemed to me possible to interpret the stainable granules lying 
near to the nucleus in gemmiparous tissue as such food material,’ par- 
ticularly since we know that food material döes exist in the ccelomic 
epithelium lying next to the cells which are about to divide rapidly and 
to give rise to the inner layer of the polypide. That food is being taken 
in by the inner layer cells from the calomic epithelium is indicated by 
the fact that the nuclei of the former cells lie near the latter epithelium 
(cf. Figs. 15, 17, 18, 28, 56, ete.) ; for, as Korschelt has shown, the nu- 
cleus tends to move towards the centre of activity of the cell. That these 
1 Granules similar to these appear to exist in the protoplasm of all cells. It 
is their extraordinary abundance in the geminiparous tissue upon which I lay 
stress. They have been variously interpreted by different authors. Bütschli (’88, 
pp. 1469-1472) describes various kinds of stainable granules in Ciliata which are 
food products, and the general character of which accords with that of the gran- 
ules referred to above. ‘Excretion granules” of Ciliata do not stain, according 
to this author, which is an indication that the bodies in gemmiparous tissue are not 
such. Iam particularly struck by the fact that the food products of Protozoa are 
chiefly found in parasitic forms, — Gregarinid® and parasitic Ciliata. These take 
up food in solution from their hosts exactly as the cells of the body wall of Bryo- 
zoa do from the body cavity. Altmann (’90) has recently interpreted similar 
deeply staining granules in other cells, as “die Elementarorganismen.” I can 
see no reason, on Altmann’s theory, for the peculiar distribution of the granules 
that I have found. 
