1897.] Physiology. 245 
gate postulated by certain workers in the field of experimental embry- 
ology. 
The polar bodies are said to spin like the cells of the egg for a 
long time after their formation and to remain so long in protoplasmic 
continuity with the other cells that there is a possibility they may not 
be entirely without a place in the developmental changes. 
The peculiar activities of the protoplasm of these eggs together with 
many general questions connected with such phenomena will be con- 
sidered in a second paper, now in press. 
Though these remarkable phenomena are new to our knowledge of 
eggs the reviewer would suggest that what is here seen as living fila- 
ments may have appeared to other observers as a protoplasmic envelope 
on the outside of the egg. Thus it may be that the very thick cover- 
ing “ Protoplasma mantel” figured and described by Selenka? in the 
Ophuirid Ophioglypha lacertosa and the much thinner “ Protoplasma 
schicht” in the Echinid Strongylocentrotus lividus, which also enters 
the cleavage cavity, are really a collection of spinnings, possibly some- 
what pathological. In the last named case this outer envelope of the 
egg has recently been emphasized by Hammar‘ as a connection between 
the cells. 
PHYSIOLOGY. 
.The action of the venom ofthe Australian Black Snake.— 
From numerous experiments detailed in a lengthy paper in the Journal 
and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales’ C. J. Mar- 
tin concludes briefly that the venom of the Australian black snake 
(Pseudechis porphyriacus) is comprehensive in its action, but affects 
principally the three most vulnerable points of the higher organism, 
namely, the blood, heart, and the respiratory center in the medulla. 
Its method of destroying life depends essentially upon the concentra- 
tion with which the venom reaches the circulation. When the concen- 
tration reaches a certain limit, death may be almost instantaneous from 
a coagulation of the blood, thus ending circulation. If the concentra- 
tion falls short of this the venom has the opposite effect of destroying 
the capacity of the blood to clot when shed. When this is the case any 
* Studien über Ent. Hft. 2. Wiesbaden, 1883. 
` * Archiv. f. Mik. Anat. March, 1896. 
' XXIX (1896), pp. 146-278. 
