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L. Digbv 
bodics split, their sides tend to fragment and to become beaded (fig. 51). 
The absolute similarity m the constituent parts of the two sides is very 
clearly inarked (figs. 51 and 52). The split bodies are at first inore or 
less peripheraUy ananged, but as the linin network, preparatory for 
synapsis, collects round the nucleolus, it withdraws the chromatic portions 
to the centre of the nucleus. 
The view that the paired chromatic bodies are the result of fission 
of a single body entails the assumption that each whole body represents 
a portion of a wliole somatic chromosome. Consequently, the fission 
■which divides it into two daughter halves is homologous with the fission 
in the chromatic bodies of the “resting” somatic nuclei, and in the spireme 
of the somatic prophases. The fission visible in the heterotype prophase 
wiU ultimately divide the univalent chromosomes into their daughter 
halves on the homotype spindle, whereas the fission in the somatic pro- 
phase will take effect at the approaching mitosis. 
It is not possible to testify by actual proof, to the true nature of the 
chromatic bodies, owing to the fact, that, during interkinesis, all individ- 
uality of the chromosomes is lost to view, and hence no relationship can 
be traced between the chromosomes of the telophase of the last arche- 
sporial division. and the chromatic aggregations of the heterotype pre- 
S}maptic prophases. In Galtonia (9), on the other hand, where there is 
no interkinetal rest. the paired portions of the heterotype presynaptic 
prophases can be identified with the paired chromosome segments of 
the preceding archesporial telophase, and these are recognised as result- 
ing directly from the alveolisation and fission of the chromosomes. 
In the study of Crepis virens two facts can easily be determined 
which advocate the view that the paired aspect of chromatic bodies in 
the early heterotype prophase is due not to approximation, but to 
fission. 1. The two parallel sides of the chromatic bodies are iden- 
tical in size, shape and character: 2. The number of the chromatic bodies 
increases as the nucleus proceeds towards synapsis, whereas if it were 
a matter of approximation the number would decrease. 
Apart from the value of evidence afforded by critical Observation 
of actual phenomena, it is also significant that similar paired bodies are 
to be found in resting somatic nuclei, in the resting tetrad nuclei, and 
in the extra nuclear cytoplasm. In the somatic resting nuclei the pairing 
represents a reassociation of daughter halves of somatic chromosomes 
which had separated durmg the preceding telophase. The space 
between them represents an early fission, the fission which will later 
divide the daughter chromosomes. A similar Interpretation must be 
