Marquette—Spore Mother-Cells of Marsilia . 
97 
The chromosomes at the stage represented by Figure 9 are 
crowded near the central part of the cell, a condition which 
suggests a pushing in on them on the part of the spindle fibers. 
In this connection it should also be mentioned that at one stage 
shortly after synapsis, when the chromatin strands are long and 
of fairly uniform diameter, they apparently lie in a loose 
tangle on the side of the nucleus opposite that at which the 
synaptic mass was located (Figs. 5 and 6). It looks as though 
the chromatin strands were pushed over to that side, although 
the cytoplasmic fibers cannot be traced at this stage into the 
nuclear cavity. 
As the nuclear membrane disappears during dialdnesis and 
the spindle for the first division forms, the starch mass ap¬ 
parently continues to occupy the same position in the cell 
that it had during the earlier stages. In presynapsis and 
early synapsis stages, the starch mass invariably lies on the 
outer side of the cell; later it is frequently found on the side 
nearest the interior of the spore sac or in some intermediate 
position. It is to be noted, however, that at just about this 
time the spore mother-cells commence to round off and sepa¬ 
rate more or less from each other, and it seems that at this 
time they rotate more or less so that their original position is 
changed. At another time I hope to enter more into detail 
upon the motions which the spore mother-cells undergo at this 
period; suffice it for our present purposes to say that, as far as 
my data go at present, they do not indicate that the starch 
mass undergoes any translocations within the cell up to the 
time of the first nuclear division. 
The spindle figure for the first division is unusually sharply 
defined. The fibers are delicate, numerous, and take a bril¬ 
liant blue with the triple stain; they are sharply differentiated, 
so that they are readily followed in cross sections of the spindle. 
The poles are often rather broad and lie close to the plasma 
membrane, although they do not necessarily extend to it. The 
fibers twist about each other and frequently come together in 
little groups at their polar ends, and often a small, deeply stain¬ 
ing granule lies at the end of such a group. There seems to 
be no constancy in the number of such groups in a spindle. 
