1897.] Zoology. 67 
forked or branched, in others they are uniaxial. In adjacent cells the 
axes of nuclear elongation are frequently parallel; sometimes they 
radiate more or less regularly from a common area. The chromatic 
substance within these elongated nuclei is usually drawn out into rods 
or threads, which are parallel with the axis of elongation, Fig. 3. They 
frequently extend through several cells, and in a few cases were ob- 
served to protrude through the coelomic parietes of the cells. They 
show no marked tendency to fuse with each other, their long processes 
frequently passing through two or three cells without fusing with the 
nuclei of those cells. They are no more abundant in animals, which 
have been starved four weeks, and in which the alimentary canal has 
been for a long time entirely empty, than in animals which are well 
fed. In many cells the nuclei are broken up into several fragments, 
Fig. 2, each of which, though possessing no part of the original nuclear 
membrane, is yet sharply marked off from the cytoplasm. In all such 
cases the nucleus shows its characteristic staining reactions ; in fact, the 
nuclear substance, though flowing through the cytoplasm, does not 
mingle with it. In general the nucleus and cytoplasm behave like two 
fluids, which are not miscible, e. g., oil and water. In some cases, how- 
ever, which will be described a little later, the substances of the nucleus 
and the cytoplasm appear to mingle at a definite point in the cell, and 
this under what seems to be normal physiological conditions. 
The view that these distorted nuclei are squeezed from one cell to 
another is still further supported by the fact that the coelomic, and 
especially the luminal walls of these intestinal cells, are strong and 
thick, while sections show that in most regions the parietal walls are so 
thin that they cannot be distinguished; the nuclei might therefore 
easily pass through these parietal walls. The apparently well-marked 
cell boundaries which one observes in surface views of the intestine are 
really the superficial muscle fibres which run in the furrows between 
successive rows of cells. 
I was at first inclined to attribute the source of the presumable pres- 
sure by which these bizarre forms of nuclei were produced to the con- 
traction of these circular and longitudinal muscle fibres which, especially 
in the posterior portion of the alimentary canal, lie with great regu- 
larity between the successive circular and longitudinal rows of cells. 
The fact, however, that these abnormal nuclei may occur singly or in 
very narrowly circumscribed areas, and do not usually follow the lines 
of a single muscle fibre, whereas the fibres most probably contract as a 
whole, Jed to the abandonment in the main. of this view. 
