40 
ME. E. EAY LANKESTEE ON THE 
times called the protoplasm), is seen as stained by carmine imbibition. The egg is now 
a little over of an inch in diameter. It is surrounded by branched connective- 
tissue corpuscles, some three or four of which are closely applied to it. By simple plasmic 
nutrition (that is, by assimilation of matters which reach it by osmotic action from the 
blood) the egg-corpuscle now increases in size, especially that part of it which we 
called the body, and which now begins to assume the characteristics of an egg-yelk, 
viz. in the fact that it is taking on a special and excessive growth. With this increase 
of size, it is to be observed that the egg has acquired a more definite envelope (fig. 15, oc.). 
The egg continues to increase in bulk, and the “ body ” relatively more so than does 
the nucleus, the nucleolus of which has now become broken down. The capsule 
becomes now definitely pinched off from the surrounding tissue, and a peduncle forms 
to it which henceforward increases in length with the growth of the egg itself. 
Whilst the peduncle is forming, the connective-tissue corpuscles forming the capsule 
have proliferated in such a way as to form a double layer surrounding the egg, which 
henceforth we can distinguish as “inner” and “outer” capsular membranes (Plate 11. 
fig. 16). The corpuscles of the outer capsular tissue do not become materially changed; 
they increase in number, and form a firm connective-tissue tunic to the egg continuous 
with the peduncle. But the corpuscles of the inner capsular membrane, lying in direct 
contact with the naked surface of the growing egg-cell, take on a very different cha- 
racter; they form a secreting epithelium of columnar corpuscles, which have, up to a 
certain stage of the egg’s growth, the characters of “ goblet cells ” (see Plate 12. 
figs. 27 & 28). Whilst the corpuscles of the inner capsular membrane are assuming this 
definite character, blood-vessels are pushing their way along the peduncle, and ulti- 
mately form a network lying between the inner and the outer membranes of the cap- 
sule, with an artery and a vein carrying the blood to and from the egg along the axis 
of the peduncle. The development of this vascular system is a gradual affair ; but in 
an egg of the size seen in Plate 11. fig 5 it is already in operation. The development 
of marked longitudinal ridges on the inner capsular membrane is one of the first results 
of the penetration of the vascular system to the egg-capsule. 
Second Stage of Ovarian Growth . — From this time forward the whole nutrition of the 
egg-corpuscle is fundamentally changed. Whereas it could previously be spoken of as 
a plasmic nutrition, it now becomes entirely dependent on the cells of the inner cap- 
sular membrane and their nutrition by the elaborate network of blood-vessels. The 
corpuscles of the inner capsule are continually growing afresh, undergoing a peculiar 
metamorphosis of their protoplasm, and pouring out the metamorphosed matter into 
the substance of the growing egg-cell, just as the goblet cells of a mucous membrane 
produce their glairy secretion (see Plate 12. fig. 28). The nutrition thus becomes one 
characterized by the assumption of visible semifluid material by the body nourished — 
inceptive nutrition. At a later period, it appears that it again somewhat changes its 
character. Whether the term “nutrition” is or is not applicable to such segregation 
of matter as here goes on may be a matter for discussion ; but I am inclined to think 
