AND DEVELOPMENT OE M YKIOTHEL A . 
561 
a considerable extent of their surface (fig. 7) ; while those ova which lie more towards the 
periphery of the cavity continue longer distinct, but ultimately follow the same course as 
the others by coalescing into compound masses. 
Several such masses (fig. 10), eight or more, will thus be formed from the coalesced ova. 
They detach themselves more and more from the spadix. They are now of an oval 
form ; and some of them may still be seen to be connected with the spadix by a narrow 
easily ruptured protoplasmic prolongation. They do not, however, entirely fill the 
cavity of the gonophore ; and the narrow intervals between them, as well as the small 
space which separates them from the walls of the gonophore, is occupied by a matter 
which appears to consist chiefly of free nuclei and of dwindled and degraded ova, all 
apparently undergoing a process of liquefaction, and doubtless an unused residuum of 
the bodieshy the coalescence of which the compound masses had been formed. 
If in this stage the gonophore be laid open, and the protoplasm masses, whose forma- 
tion we have been tracing, be liberated under the microscope, we shall often succeed 
in witnessing very minute bristle-like processes of clear protoplasm which have become 
developed over their surface (fig. 11). These little processes, however, are not permanent 
structures, and they will often become entirely withdrawn while the object is under 
examination. They are, in fact, true pseudopodia, and are probably employed in the 
nutrition of the masses from which they arise. 
The contents of the gonophore, however, are intended to undergo further changes 
before the period of their liberation has arrived. The separate protoplasm masses 
increase in size, the residual matter which had surrounded them disappears, having 
probably afforded material for their nutrition ; they begin to coalesce with one another, 
and there is ultimately formed a single large plasmodium, which entirely fills the cavity 
of the gonophore. When this plasmodium is examined under the compressor, the same 
nucleolated nuclei which had hitherto characterized the products of the coalescence of 
the ova are seen to be scattered in great numbers through its substance (fig. 13). 
These nuclei, however, have already, begun to suffer a change ; for while in some the 
nucleolus is still distinct, in others it has quite disappeared ; and while in some the con- 
tents consist of a minutely granular matter, in others they are quite homogeneous. 
When the separate protoplasm masses have all united with one another, but gene- 
rally a little before they have become so completely fused together as to have their 
original distinctness entirely lost, the time has arrived when the contents of the gono- 
phore are to be expelled. The walls of the gonophore now begin to contract on these 
contents ; and here the use of the muscular layer, which is well developed in them, 
becomes at once apparent. The contained plasmodium is thus gradually forced out 
through the summit of the gonophore (fig. 14, cl). 
The orifice in the endodermal wall of the gonogenetic chamber is ready to aid in 
giving exit to the plasmodium, but the ectoderm has been hitherto imperforate. This, 
however, appears to have been becoming gradually thinner on the point immediately 
over the endodermal orifice, and it is now easily ruptured at this spot by the pressure 
