We have therefore the remarkable fact, that whatever connection these bodies may have with cell-division, they can occur in cases where this is altogether out of the question and where an increase in the number of nuclei can be their only product.
These are the main facts which I have been able to determine with reference to the nuclei of this stage; but it will conduce to clearness if I now finish what I have to say upon this subject.
At a still later stage of segmentation the same peculiar bodies are to be seen as during the stage just described, but they are rarer; and, in addition to them, other bodies are to be seen of a character intermediate between ordinary nuclei and the former bodies.
Three such are represented in Pl. 6, figs. 8_a_, 8_b_, 8_c_. In all of these there can be traced out the two cones, which are however very irregular. The striation of the cones is still present, but is not nearly so clear as it was in the earlier stage.
In addition to this, there are numerous deeply stained granules scattered about the two figures which resemble exactly the granules of typical nuclei.
All these bodies occupy the place of an ordinary nucleus, they stain like an ordinary nucleus and are as sharply defined as an ordinary nucleus.
There is present around some of these, especially those situated in the yolk, the network of lines of the yolk described by me in a preliminary paper[82], and I feel satisfied that there is in some cases an actual connection between the network and the nuclei. This network I shall describe more fully hereafter.
Further points about these figures and the nuclei of this stage I should like to have been able to observe more completely than I have done, but they are so small that with the highest powers I possess (Zeiss, Immersion No. 2 = 1/15 in.) their complete and satisfactory investigation is not possible.
Most of the true nuclei of the cells of the germinal disc are regularly rounded; those however of the yolk are frequently irregular in shape and often provided with knob-like processes. The gradations are so complete between typical nuclei and bodies like that shewn (Pl. 6, fig. 8_c_) that it is impossible to refuse the name of nucleus to the latter.