37 
the thickened ball. Lastly, other balls which were appa- 
rently further developed showed plainly that these indenta- 
tions were not merely on the surface of the thickened con- 
tents, but were only the external sign of the breaking up of 
the whole globular orange-red mass into a great number of 
small balls. In the most developed individuals the entire 
orange-red contents of the balls was, indeed, divided into 
nothing else but small balls of 0'017 mm. These lay 
scarcely pressed together, and touched each other only slightly, 
something like a heap of cannon balls. Again, they had 
moved apart from each other in such a way that they no 
longer filled up the entire hollow of the sphere, but were 
much more separated from each other by a small quantity 
of the clear fluid which had previously collected between 
the hyaline membrane and the thickened contents (fig. 3). 
The number of small orange-red balls which resulted from 
the dissolution of the original large ball was about two hun- 
dred at its subsequent bursting. 
Next, I attempted to arrive at a closer knowledge of the 
orange-red contents of the undivided balls by bursting 
the membrane. This was easily effected. As soon as the 
pressure of the covering-glass had exceeded a certain point, the 
membrane burst usually in one place, rarely in several at 
once ; and the orange-red contents oozed slowly out. The 
hyaline structureless membrane remaining in a very wrinkled 
condition. 
The solid contents of the balls, which had the moderate 
consistence of the organic plasma or protoplasma, issued 
from the burst fracture very slowly and gradually ; and 
spread itself out between the stage-glass and the cover- 
ing-glass, so that the edges appeared like roundish obtuse 
patches of dissimilar size. By cautious shifting of the 
covering-glass, it was tolerably easy to move the trans- 
parent shrivelled and collapsed jelly-like envelope of the 
burst ball on one side, so that the orange-red contents lay 
isolated under the covering-glass. On the application of 
moderate pressure, it appeared like a shapeless, roundish mass, 
whose edge fluctuated about in irregular projections of dif- 
ferent size ; some projections appeared to be notched. It 
was plain at the first glance that the whole mass was struc- 
tureless and homogeneous. Only a veiy large quantity of 
the already mentioned very fine punctiform particles and 
a smaller number of larger globular granules were scattered 
through the completely homogeneous substance. The 
latter was throughout the whole mass of a pale reddish 
colour, as well as at the edge, where it only spread out as 
