484 Farmer. — On Spore- Formation and 
specially-thickened areas of the linin, and these mark out the 
future chromosomes. In many instances it seemed as if the 
chromatin were grouped in four distinct patches in each 
chromosome-rudiment, as Brauer described it in the case 
of Ascaris \ And in the event of this being general it would 
point to a double fission, whereby the chromosome elements 
would be thus early distributed for the two following mitoses. 
But I was unable to recognize this arrangement with such 
sufficient regularity or frequency as would lead to so im- 
portant a conclusion being definitely drawn, though I regard 
it as a very probable one. Many chromosomes, however, 
at this stage showed more than four chromatic groups, and 
this would seem rather to diminish the value of those 
observations in which the fourfold grouping was distinctly 
visible, for there was no evidence to show that the former 
was merely a transitional stage of the latter ; at the same time 
it might easily be due to the chromosome having been 
observed in an oblique position. Contraction of the chromo- 
some still proceeds, and these bodies, eight in number, are 
clearly seen to possess the form of rings , or loops closed 
at both ends (Figs. 20, 21). At this period the nucleoli cease 
to be longer visible. The original large nucleolus almost 
always fragments, after becoming very much vacuolated, and 
the particles into which it breaks up are usually seen to be 
lying on or close to the young chromosomes. It does not 
of course follow from this that substance is directly passing 
out of them into the segments of the linin, although I think 
this to be not improbable. It is, however, possible that their 
proximity has a mechanical rather than any other relation, 
and that as they decrease in size, their substance at first diffuses 
into the surrounding nuclear sap, whatever may be its ultimate 
destination. The chromosomes become shorter and thicker, 
and their ring-like shape is no longer discernible. They are 
at first lying somewhat irregularly in the nucleus, but they 
gradually assume a regular arrangement in the equatorial 
Loc. cit. 
