466 Ferguson . — The Development of the Egg and 
a nucleus seems to have been entirely resolved, during its 
disintegration, into achromatic fibres. As above stated, in 
no case observed did the division of these nuclei reach 
telokinesis ; but at some point in the development prior to 
such a late stage, activity ceased, and disintegration of the 
nuclear elements took place. 
It might be suggested that these division-figures result 
from the conjugation of the nucleus of the ventral canal- 
cell with the smaller sperm-nucleus. There is no evidence 
that such is the case, and I am convinced that they could 
not have had such an origin. In an examination of many 
hundred archegonia just before fertilization, no ventral canal- 
cell containing a normal nucleus has been observed. Shall 
we, then, conclude that, in a far less number of preparations 
representing stages immediately following fecundation, fifty 
or more instances occur in which the nucleus of the ventral 
canal-cell has conjugated with another nucleus and sub- 
sequently divided? 
It is generally recognized, especially by cytologists on the 
animal side, that the stimulus to division is given, not by the 
egg-nucleus, but by the cytoplasm of the egg. If this be 
true, it is not strange that these nuclei, lying in a position 
where everything is most favourable for growth and develop- 
ment — in a medium not only rich in nutritive substances but 
especially adapted to incite activity in nuclei — should divide. 
It is a well-known fact that when several spermatozoa enter 
the ovum of certain animals, only one unites with the egg- 
nucleus, the others degenerate, or, as is frequently the case, 
they divide mitotically. And herein we find a further 
similarity between the processes attending fertilization in 
some animals and those taking place within the oosphere 
of Finns . 
