449 
in the Saprolegnieae. 
may frequently find these staining masses aggregated in two 
distinct groups with linin-strands traversing the centre of the 
nucleus. The nuclear wall is less distinct from the cytoplasm, 
and the nuclein bodies stain less deeply. Here comes the first 
point of difference between Trow and myself ; I cannot inter- 
pret these facts as other than the fusion of nuclei, and the 
multiple staining bodies as representing the originally separate 
nuclein-masses of the nuclei that have fused. When there are 
two groups of granules, each would thus represent the granules 
of an already complex nucleus at an early, incomplete stage 
of fusion with a similar one. Trow regards these figures as 
indicating indirect nuclear division, identifies the several steps 
with those of ordinary mitosis, and concludes that these are 
the ordinary gamete-specializing divisions. The reduction in 
number which goes on steadily from beginning to end of these 
changes, he ascribes to the digestion of most of the unfortunate 
nuclei in the cytoplasm. 
The reduction in the amount of staining material in a nucleus 
is, however, not an unexampled phenomenon in the passage 
from a vegetative to a reproductive cell ; the germinal vesicle 
of the ovarian egg of Vertebrata is a notable case in point. 
The issue between us is essentially this: — Trow believes that 
the nuclei divide, and that the greater part of the daughter- 
nuclei thus formed are bodily digested in the cytoplasm : 
whilst I infer from my observations that the nuclei fuse two 
and two at the same time that they shrink in size, while the 
amount of staining material is simultaneously reduced ; and 
in this way the number of nuclei is so reduced that finally 
there is but one nucleus left in each oospore. The reduction 
in staining properties may be regarded as due to a digestive 
process ; but according to my views the digestion would be 
entirely intra-nuclear. I found that in Achlya this reduction 
is seldom complete at the moment of the resolution into 
oospores, so that at first each is frequently binucleate ; and 
Humphrey confirmed this: in Saprolegnia , on the contrary, 
each oospore is usually uninucleate at its very beginning. 
However, I have noted that there are occasional exceptions 
