28 RALPH E. WAGER. 



that cells are taken bodily into it. Indeed, the facts already set 

 forth are not at all comparable to amoeboid activities. Some cases 

 were found in which it would appear that the nourishing cells 

 over a limited area had been transformed into pseudo-cells even 

 before entering the egg. Occasionally, isolated cases of such 

 changes were found at a considerable distance from the egg. 

 Again, the protoplasmic mass resulting from the processes above 

 described is under a certain pressure due to the tension of the 

 ectodermal layer by which it is covered, and would therefore tend 

 to flow into intercellular spaces and often simulate active amoebic 

 engulfments by partially surrounding a cell. It seems more 

 probable that the egg by some chemic influence causes a pro- 

 found change to take palace in the cells which surround it. Possi- 

 bly the regressive changes, including the formation of the pseudo- 

 cells, is due to this cause. The amoeboid form of the egg does 

 exist but perhaps due in part, at least, to the causes suggested 

 above. Just before breaking through the ectoderm, in all cases 

 examined, the egg had appropriated all of the nourishing cells 

 between it and the ectoderm. Rarely, there are groups of cells 

 on either side of the egg which have not been appropriated. The 

 rounding off* process described for the eggs of coelenterates is not 

 due entirely to any activity on the part of the egg of Hydra to 

 effect such a form, but is the result, in large part, of the con- 

 sumption of all of the available nourishing cells within the ger- 

 minal area so that a more or less regular outline results. That 

 undoubted similarities between the growing egg and an amoeba 

 do exist cannot be denied, but I am persuaded that these like- 

 nesses are frequently too widely applied and lead to miscon- 

 ceptions. 



Summary. 



1. The egg begins its growth by the coalescence of a group of 

 the primitive ova; this process is frequently attended by a peculiar 

 nuclear degeneration. One of the nuclei from the group becomes 

 the functioning nucleus ; the others either disappear in the cyto- 

 plasm or are transformed into pseudo-cells. 



2. The egg thus beginning its growth continues to increase in 

 size by two processes : [a) By the disappearance of the cell 

 wall between it and neighboring cells attended by a regressive 



