406 MAINE AGRICUI.TURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I912. 



Turning now to a consideration of the cells covering the tops 

 and sides of these folds, a condition qtiite different from that 

 near the mouth of the funnel is found. In the first place the 

 shape of the folds, while often very irregular, (Cf. fig. 458) 

 are in general roughly triangular. (Fig. 463) This makes 

 rather deep pouches at the sides of the glandular grooves. It 

 will be remembered that near the mouth, the epithelium over 

 these folds consisted of a single layer of rather long ciliated 

 cells. Only a single row of nuclei was present (Cf. figs. 460 

 and 461). Here, however, the condition is more complicated. 

 Figure 463 shows that the nuclei are arranged more or less 

 irregularly but that several rows are present. Careful exami- 

 nation shows that not all of these cells are ciliated. In none 

 of the preparation of this region which I have been able to 

 obtain, do the cell boundaries come out distinctly. It is thus 

 difficult to tell which cells are ciliated and which are not. By 

 the examination of occasional sections in which some of the 

 cell outlines are clear, it seems practically certain that the cells 

 in which the nuclei lie well towards the periphery are ciliated. 

 The cells with deeper lying nuclei on the other hand are non- 

 ciliated gland cells. Except at the time these latter cells are 

 actively discharging secretion their peripheral portion is very 

 much compressed between the broader ciliated cells. This 

 makes it very difficult to obtain good views of entire gland 

 cells. Details regarding these epithelial gland cells will be dis- 

 cussed later in connection with other regions of the oviduct, 

 which are more favorable for their observation. 



When sections from this region of an active oviduct are 

 stained with gentian violet or saf ranin the openings of the single 

 celled glands described in the last paragraph take a much deeper 

 stain than any other part of section. By this means it is pos- 

 sible to study the distribution of these gland cells over the folds 

 of the epithelium.' Examination of such sections shows that 

 the opening of the glands are in general much more numerous 

 along the sides of the folds than over the middle. This is also 

 borne out 'by a study of the distribution of the deeper lying 

 nuclei. 



Bela ('10) (figure 4, plate i.) shows these unicellular 

 epithelial glands in the funnel neck of the pigeon. So far as 



