Cytology of a new variety of Achlya americana . 157 
At a stage in the development of the oogonium which 
just precedes that in which the balling of the protoplasm 
to form the eggs begins (Fig. 41), the fixing always produces 
a great shrinkage of the protoplasm, as if violent plasmolysis 
had taken place. Examination of the protoplasm leads to 
the conviction that it is neither injured nor distorted in the 
process, and a careful search for nuclei reveals the fact that 
there are in the oogonium about as many nuclei as will suffice 
to provide one for each egg — in this case two . The nuclei 
are recognized as in the last stages of division — the chromo- 
somes are crowded together near the central point and the 
new nuclear membrane is apparently present. Figures have 
been seen which have led me doubtfully to infer that the 
new nuclear membranes may be formed whilst the old one 
is still intact. Numerous microsomata render the protoplasm 
highly granular ; and occasionally, as represented in the figure, 
we have in the large central vacuole, what we may regard 
as skeletons of fat-globules. These skeletons are very 
delicate spherical shells, almost invisible in some preparations, 
but generally very well seen in those stained with haema- 
toxylin. On account of their position and size, most of them, 
of course, do not adhere to the slide and are washed away 
with the dissolved paraffin. Their presence in the sections 
is of some service as they help to fix the stage before us as 
a very late one in the development of the gametes, almost cer- 
tainly later than that represented in Fig. 42. To this we 
may now turn. We note that we have here, as in the previous 
case, two nuclei in the last stage of division. We correlate 
them with those of Fig. 41 by the stainable nucleo-hyaloplasm. 
In addition to these, however, we have a number of groups 
of deeply stained granules. These granules are about as 
large as chromosomes, but the number varies in each group, 
four and eight being sometimes clearly seen. The grouping 
of the granules, moreover, is very irregular, and they appear 
to lie in a vacuole, giving one the idea of particles under- 
going digestion. At first it was difficult to decide whether 
they represented cases of the segmentation of the skein 
