ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
323 
been made in support of E. van Beneden’s discovery of attraction- 
spheres and central bodies in cells, offers something to fill the lacuna. 
In the leucocytes of Salamandra he has found radiate spheres and central 
bodies when mitosis was not going on. And he has especially devoted 
himself to the study of very flat cells. As a result he has found the 
central bodies, not only in early stages, but in resting cells. In fixed 
cells they are small, but in leucocytes a good deal larger. If treated 
with safranin, gentian, and orange they are, in the former, only visible 
by their slight red coloration, and if the cells have been exposed too 
long to alcohol they cannot be seen at all. In leucocytes they are 
nearly always recognizable, on account of their size and rather high 
refractive power. The relation of the central bodies to the nucleus in 
fixed cells is generally this : they lie on a longitudinal side of the 
nucleus when this is of an elongated form, and when the nucleus is 
kidney-shaped they are found on the concave side ; but these relations 
are not constant. 
Although it is only rarely that these bodies are seen, Prof. Flemming 
believes that they may be always present. Their invisibility may be 
due to various causes. If they are not at the edge of the nucleus, but a 
little above or below its surface, they are hidden ; the colour may be 
extracted from one and remain in another ; the slightest darkening above 
or below them may cause them to be invisible ; and, lastly, they may be 
too small in any given cell to be seen by means that have been used to 
observe them. 
The author finds the central bodies much more often double than 
single, and he thinks that where only one is seen the other may be 
hidden. He offers these remarks as a contribution towards the con- 
firmation of van Beneden’s view that the spheres and central bodies 
are general and permanent organs of the cell. 
Clasmatocytes.* — Prof. L. Banvier gives to certain cells found in 
thin connective tissues of Vertebra ta (epiploon of mammals, mesentery 
of Batrachia) the name of clasmatocytes (/cA-ao-p-a, a fragment). They 
are demonstrated by stretching the membrane on a slide, and then 
pouring over it a few drops of one per cent, osmic acid. After two or 
three minutes it is washed with distilled water, and stained with a dilute 
solution of BBBBB methyl-violet, one part of the concentrated solution 
to ten parts of distilled water. After putting on a cover-glass the 
preparation is examined with medium powers, and the clasmatocytes are 
seen as branched or moniliform cells stained a red-violet. In their 
immediate neighbourhood, and especially about their prolongations, are 
to be seen accumulations of granules, a condition which the author 
supposes to be characteristic of these cells, and hence their name. 
Although these cells are derived originally from leucocytes they are 
quite immobile, and hence resemble extremely the macrophages of 
phagocytosis. 
Transformation of Lymphatic Cells into Clasmatocytes.f — M. L. 
Ranvier has been able to watch in a glass the conversion of lymphatic 
cells into those modified migratory cells which he calls clasmatocytes. 
* Comptes Rendus, cx. (1890) pp. 165-9. f Op. c., cxii. (1891) pp. 688-90. 
