PHARYNGEAL GLAND-CELLS OF EARTHWORMS. 263 
cells are of various shapes — more or less polygonal, triangular, 
crescent-shaped, or altogether irregular — according to the 
disposition of the adjacent cells. They do not however as a 
rule fit closely together, and are mostly well separated by 
clefts from their neighbours. They are usually longer in 
one direction than the other; the longer diameter may 
measure, on an average, 17 ; the shorter, perhaps, 10 /.i. 
Their outlines are not definite, and they are frequently 
continuous at their periphery with an amorphous or fibrillar 
coagulum-like substance, which partly fills up the intercellular 
spaces, and by the intermediation of which the cells may be 
continuous with each other. 
The nucleus is often obscured by the deeply-staining portion 
of the cell-body to be described. It is subspherical or 
shortly oval, 4*5-6 g in its long diameter. The nucleolus 
is large and distinct, evenly staining, and often somewhat 
excentrically situated ; granules of chromatin occupy the 
more peripheral region of the nucleus (obscured in the 
figure). 
The cell-body may be distinguished into deeply and more 
lightly staining portions. The deeper staining portion is 
always considerable in amount, and may form almost the 
whole of the cell-body ; no further structure can be made out 
in this portion ; it is seldom well defined in its extent, and 
merges into the more lightly staining portion at its periphery. 
The outer portion of the cells stains more lightly, and has a 
granular, or sometimes apparently a reticular constitution ; 
it has often no definite peripheral boundary, the cell having 
a ragged edge as if its outer portion were disintegrating ; or 
it merges into the loose substance between and sometimes 
connecting the cells. 
Transformation of the Cells. — These cells are typi- 
cally seen, and in large numbers, dorsally and posteriorly on 
the pharyngeal mass ; where, as a compact aggregate, they 
form the lobules previously described, which are penetrated by 
the emerging muscular bundles ; near the posterior limit of the 
mass there is in addition an admixture of follicles of “ blood- 
