45 8 Hartog . — The Alleged Fertilization 
The sentence, ‘ The clear material through which the threads 
pass we may regard as nuclear sap or nucleo-hyaloplasma, the 
threads themselves as linin-threads ’ (p. 152), conveys no clear 
meaning to my mind as to what he understands by nucleo- 
hyaloplasma ; most botanists would apply the term to the 
linin-threads themselves minus the microsomes. Again, ‘ It is 
difficult to determine the substance which fills these true 
vacuoles, whether it be hyaloplasm or cell-sap ’ (p. 154). His 
conception of hyaloplasma is certainly an unfamiliar one. 
With regard to the closing discussion in Professor Trow’s 
paper on nuclear reduction and alternation of generations, I 
have nothing to say here. A complete and recent statement 
of my views is to be found in two papers ‘ The Fundamental 
Principles of Heredity/ and ‘ Nuclear Reduction 5 in ‘Natural 
Science 5 for Oct.-Nov. ’97, and July ’98, both translated in 
the Biologisches Centralblatt for 1898. These contain a 
comparison of the essential relations of gametogeny to other 
brood-cell formation in Metazoa, Metaphytes, and Protista. 
A short abstract of my views contributed by me to the dis- 
cussion on Alternation of generations at the Bristol meeting 
of the British Association, has appeared in the Annals of 
Botany. It is, I presume, because these are all so accessible, 
that no reference is made to them in Professor Trow’s con- 
tribution to the subject. 
In conclusion, I have at least to thank Professor Trow for 
having given me the occasion to go back again to my old 
specimens, and to find that the lapse of years has in no way 
damaged their goodness or their legibility, while his exquisite 
drawings have again convinced me that sections can, in this 
group at least, demonstrate nothing more than good mounts 
in toto. A little more care in reading his own specimens, as 
in reading the published observations of others, would have 
saved me the painful task of criticizing unfavourably the out- 
come of a difficult and laborious research. 
