The cells are for the most part irregularly polygonal from mutual pressure; and in their shape and arrangement, exhibit a marked contrast to the epiblast cells. A few of the lower layer cells, highly magnified, are represented in Pl. 7, fig. 2a. An average cell measures about 1/800 to 1/900 of an inch, but some of the larger ones on the floor attain to the 1/475 of an inch.
Owing to my having had the good fortune to prepare some especially favourable specimens of this stage, it has been possible for me to make accurate observations both upon the nuclei of the cells of the blastoderm, and upon the nuclei of the yolk.
The nuclei of the blastoderm cells, both of the epiblast and lower layer, have a uniform structure. Those of the lower layer cells are about 1/1600 of an inch in diameter. Roughly speaking each consists of a spherical mass of clear protoplasm refracting more highly than the protoplasm of its cell. The nucleus appears in sections to be divided by deeply stained lines into a number of separate areas, and in each of these a deeply stained granule is placed. In some cases two or more of such granules may be seen in a single area. The whole of the nucleus stains with the colouring reagents more deeply than the protoplasm of the cells; but this is especially the case with the granules and lines.
Though usually spherical the nuclei not infrequently have a somewhat lobate form.
Very similar to these nuclei are the nuclei of the yolk.
One of the most important differences between the two is that of size. The majority of the nuclei present in the yolk are as large or larger than an ordinary blastoderm cell; while many of them reach a size very much greater than this. The examples I have measured varied from 1/500 to 1/250 of an inch in diameter.
Though they are divided, like the nuclei of the blastoderm, with more or less distinctness into separate areas by a network of lines, their greater size frequently causes them to present an aspect somewhat different from the nuclei of the blastoderm. They are moreover much less regular in outline than these, and very many of them have lobate projections (Pl. 7, figs. 2a and 2c and 3), which vary from simple knobs to projections of such a size as to cause the nucleus to present an appearance of commencing constriction into halves. When there are several such projections the nucleus acquires a peculiar knobbed figure. With bodies of this form it becomes in many cases a matter of great difficulty to decide whether or no a particular series of knobs, which appear separate in one plane, are united in a lower plane, whether, in fact, there is present a single knobbed nucleus or a number of nuclei in close apposition. A nucleus in this condition is represented in Pl. 7, fig. 2b.
The existence of a protoplasmic network in the yolk has already been mentioned. This in favourable cases may be observed to be in special connection with the nuclei just described. Its meshes are finer in the vicinity of the nuclei, and its fibres in some cases almost appear to start from them (Pl. 7, fig. 12). For reasons which I am unable to explain the nuclei of the yolk and the surrounding meshwork present appearances which differ greatly according to the reagent employed. In most specimens hardened in osmic acid the protoplasm of the nuclei is apparently prolonged in the surrounding meshwork (Pl. 7, fig. 12). In other specimens hardened in osmic acid (Pl. 7, fig. 11), and in all hardened in chromic acid (Pl. 7, fig. 2a and 2c), the appearances are far clearer than in the previous case, and the protoplasmic meshwork merely surrounds the nuclei, without shewing any signs of becoming continuous with them.
There is also around each nucleus a narrow space in which the spherules of the yolk are either much smaller than elsewhere or completely absent, vide Pl. 7, fig. 2b.
It has not been possible for me to satisfy myself as to the exact meaning of the lines dividing these nuclei into a number of distinct areas. My observations leave the question open as to whether they are to be looked upon as lines of division, or as protoplasmic lines such as have been described in nuclei by Flemming[126], Hertwig[127] and Van Beneden[128]. The latter view appears to me to be the more probable one.