560 Fraser. — The Development of the 
but a special example of the very general fact that nuclei present in the 
same cell usually divide simultaneously. 
A third criterion in relation to the behaviour of the sexual nuclei lies in 
the reduction-processes in the ascus. It is now recognized that the first and 
second divisions constitute a meiotic phase compensating the sexual fusion. 
A second reduction, called brachymeiotic, has been described in the third 
division for several species, and must, where it occurs, obviously correspond 
to a second fusion, that in the ascus. 
In its simplest form, as in Humaria rutilans (Fraser, ’ 08 ), Lachnea 
stercorea (Fraser and Brooks, ’ 09 ), and Helvetia crispa (Carruthers, ’ll), 
this process consists in the appearance at the poles of the third spindle of a 
number of chromosomes half that seen in the first and second divisions in the 
ascus and in the prophase of the third. It is thus essential that the third 
telophase should be studied. Claussen (’12), though he denies the occurrence 
of brachymeiosis, omits to figure this critical stage in such a way that the 
chromosomes can be counted. 
Faull (’ 12 ), who also opposes the idea of a second reduction, seems to 
have misunderstood the position. ‘Fraser and her co-workers’, he says 
(p. 347), ‘state that they have detected in certain forms indications of the 
theoretical second reduction.’ Now these authors, rightly or wrongly, have 
quite definitely recorded and figured the occurrence of a brachymeiotic 
reduction of the chromosomes, the ‘ indication ’ in question being that the 
chromosomes are half as numerous in the third teleophase as in that of the 
first division in the ascus. 
They have suggested an explanation (Fraser and Welsford, ’ 08 ) of the 
forms in which, as in Phyllactinea , an evident change in the chromosome 
number does not occur. 
It is not proposed to enter here into details which have already been 
discussed, but it is perhaps worth while to place on record that a re- 
examination of the preparations in question has confirmed the writer in the 
view that an actual numerical change, whatever its significance, takes place 
in connexion with the third division in the ascus. 
Faull adds (p. 347) that ‘ Guillermond, Dangeard, Maire, Brooks ’, 
himself, ‘ Claussen, as also Harper, have found no second reduction in 
the many forms examined by them.’ 
This statement is open to misconception. Dangeard in Ascobolus 
furfur aceus (Botaniste, vii, 1907, pp. 316-17) and in Pyronema confluens 
(Botaniste, vii, 1907, p. 284), and Maire in Morchella esculenta (Annales 
Mycologici, iii, 1905, pp. 135-6), in Peziza vesiculosa (Annales Mycologici, 
iii, 1905, p. 134), and in Galactinia succosa (Annales Mycologici, iii, 1905, 
pp. 130-2), both found a condition corresponding to that later described as 
brachymeiosis. Brooks (Annals of Botany, xxiv, 1910, p. 598) affirms that 
he was unable to determine whether the reduction he observed in Gnomonia 
