AND ON THE DIRECT AGENCY OF THE SPERMATOZOON. 
259 
April 5, 1852. Atmosphere 54°.~Two eggs were placed in separate cells, which 
were immediately filled with nearly pure fluid. In about one hour afterwards the 
respiratory chamber was beginning- to be formed in both these eggs, but its progress 
was slow. One egg was then washed as completely as possible with a powerful jet 
of water, thrown upon it by a syringe, and the cell was then filled with pure water, 
while the cell with the other egg was replenished with more of the fecundatory 
mixture. After the addition of fresh water to the first egg its envelopes began to 
expand, and it was then seen that the substance of these coverings Jilled with 
spermatozoa, lying in every direction and so crowded around the envelope zuhich 
immediately invests the yelk, as to render the whole semi-opake. The envelopes of the 
second egg were much more opake than those of the first. Yet the respiratory 
chamber was developed, after a lengthened interval, in both, but earlier in the egg 
which had been washed and placed in water than in that which remained in the fluid. 
At the expiration of twelve hours the second egg was washed and placed in pure 
water like the first. Both eggs were preserved, from within an hour or two after 
their first encounter with seminal fluid, for four days in a temperature which ranged 
from 59° Fahr. to 64° Fahr. At the end of three days and a quarter, or about seventy- 
eight hours, in this temperature the development of the embryo had advanced so far 
in the first as to the union of the laminae dorsales, and the narrowing and elongation 
of the body, a stage of development at which the function of aeration is becoming 
more energetic in the evolution of ciliary action. At this stage of formation the 
development of the embryo became arrested, although the egg was properly supplied 
with water, and from this period it decayed. The second egg, which had remained 
twelve hours in the mixed fluid before it was supplied with fresh water, perished much 
earlier, and before there were any distinct evidences of the formation of an embryo. 
On other occasions I have found that the egg does not become fertilized at all, 
but the yelk contracts irregularly, and resembles the yelk of eggs affected by solution 
of potass. 
These are the usual results of immersion in undiluted fluid, which, contrary to 
what occurs with minimum quantities, appears to be most prejudicial to the egg, in 
its pure state, when the temperature of the surrounding medium is much increased ; 
so that the cause of failure in these cases of excess may reasonably be attributed, in 
great part, to a smothering of the egg, through impeded aeration ; accelerated, 
perhaps, by some chemical change, through increased temperature, in the remains of 
the spermatozoa, with which the envelopes of the egg are crowded in their interior. 
12. THE MOTION OF THE SPERMATOZOON IN RELATION TO ITS FUNCTION. 
The possibility of the fecundatory function being in some way connected with the 
motion exhibited by the contents of the pollen in plants, and with that of the 
spermatozoa in animals, has not escaped the consideration of the best observers. 
Mr. Brown, the most distinguished of botanists, many years ago, made this the 
MDCCCLTII. 2 M 
