ORCELLA. 405 



Quite at the peripheral margin these Graafian vesicles were most abundant, 

 causing the circumference to assume quite a granular character even to the naked 

 eye, and markedly so under a hand-lens. 



In those parts of the section where it had not been made too thin, and where 

 consequently the relations of the tissues were least disturbed, it seemed as if the 

 follicles, just within the more uniform zonary margin, began to have a festooned 

 appearance, the festooned groups being arranged somewhat irregularly into less 

 or more wedge-shaped masses ; these latter, occasionally composed of parallel lines, 

 tending inwards ia a wedge-shaped manner, some terminating in single narrow 

 centrally directed lines, others joining and approaching archedly the angle of 

 the neighbouring wedge. Thus the entire superficial surface of the ovary, with 

 a diameter of over a quarter of an inch, has a smTOunding ovigerous band about 

 0"'08 deep : the band thinning inwards with conical piUars sparsely connected by 

 arching lines of scattered Graafian follicles. 



The fibro-nucleate character of the attached border of the ovary is more pro- 

 nounced than is the general stroma of the organ ; the wavy nucleated nature of 

 the connective tissue of the medullary stroma is notwithstanding very apparent, 

 especially where encircling blood-vessels, and here and there it leaves open 

 spaces. 



On examination under higher powers of the microscope, the structure of the 

 Graafian vesicles could be tolerably well made out in some places, much less so in 

 others. In the best examples, the band of cells constituting the proligerous disc 

 {tunica granulosa) was very clear and distinct, and it encompassed closely but 

 loosely the much darker and denser vitellus, in the midst of which, but only 

 in very few, a germinal vesicle was appreciable, but whose germinal spot was by 

 no means definitely made out. 



I further investigated the ovary of the gravid female, one section of which, 

 taken through the corpus luteum, I show in Plate XXXVII, fig. 11. 



The stroma of this specimen (s) was almost entirely composed of comparatively 

 large-sized oval and hexagonal nucleated cells agglutinated together by delicate 

 nucleo- granular and fibrillated connective tissue, fig. 11 A. The stout outer fibrous 

 true coat resolved itself very distiactly from these. Towards the periphery, imme- 

 diately beneath the outer envelopes, but also more sparsely scattered through the 

 medullary part of the ovary, were ova in various stages of development. Some of 

 the Graafian vesicles were empty, the ova having escaped. In other ova present, 

 cell proliferation, germinal vesicle, and nucleus were distinctly manifest. 



Besides the cellular nature of the stroma, the most interesting features in this 

 ovary, and shown in figure 11, were the remnant of a corpus luteum and the pale 

 central bands. The follicle containing the corpus luteum {cl) lay just withia the 

 tunica albii/ginea, and was about the size of a mustard-seed, of a triangular shape, 

 the apex pointing inwards, and the vesicle retaining the lining cellular envelope 

 (membrana granulosa). There was a narrow open space to one side, and the re- 

 mainder of the cavity was occupied by the yellow body composed of corpuscular and 



