96 GERM-CELL CYCLE IN ANIMALS 
“Tt is passing strange that he should ignore the 
body of facts concerned in regeneration, and among 
them the reproductive organs. And it is still more 
strange that in support of this he should cite in 
detail the Hyprozoa as illustrating and supporting 
the hypothesis, ignoring the well-known facts that 
among these are abounding evidences which afford 
insuperable objections to just these assumptions. 
The present author has, in many cases, shown that 
gonads may be as readily regenerated by hydroids 
and meduse as any other organs; and that not for 
once or twice, but repeatedly in the same specimen, 
and that de novo and in situ; not the slightest evi- 
dence being distinguishable that any migration 
through preéxisting ‘germ-tracks’ occurred. The 
assumption that in these animals the gonads have 
“been shifted backwards in the course of phylogenetic 
evolution, that is, have been moved nearer to the 
starting point of development’ seems so at variance 
with known facts as to be difficult to appreciate or 
respect.” 
Professor Hargitt finally concludes with the fol- 
lowing sentence: “I believe the foregoing facts 
must suffice to show that, both as to origin, differen- 
tiation, and growth, the germ-cells of the HypRozoa, 
so far from sustaining the doctrine of the germ- 
plasm, afford the strongest and most direct evidence 
to the contrary.’ 
G. T. Hargitt (1913) has also discovered facts 
regarding the history of the germ cells in ccelenter- 
ates which are decidedly opposed to Weismann’s 
