supporting lamella

HISTOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT OP MYRIOTHELA PHEYGIA. 523
under the name of " nutritive spheres." The vacuolate cells
of Myriothela •when free from nutritive spheres maybe seen
to possess a large vacuole surrounded by scanty protoplasm.
In this condition they recall the palisade-cells of the oral
region, and the intermediate types are so numerous that I
am disposed to regard these cells as fundamentally the same.
The most constant differences are that the palisade-cells have
almost always twin nuclei, and only rarely contain nutritive
Wedged here and there between the vacuolate cells are
other and smaller dark-staining cells (fig. 21), which occupy
the same postion but are not disposed with the same regularity
as the goblet-cells. These cells are as variable in
size and appearance as the vacuolate cells, and they correspond
to the " gland-cells " of Nussbaum and Jickeli. Miss Greenwood
has shown reasons for considering that cells similar
to these occurring in the endoderm of Hydra are concerned in
the formation of the digestive enzymes, and I find that her conclusions
are warranted by the different appearances presented
by these cells under varying conditions in Myriothela To
this point we will return later.
Karely a gland-cell may be seen apparently bearing a delicate
pseudopodium or flagellum, and having the appearance
shown in fig. 186. Nussbaum similarly describes cilia on the
gland-cells of Hydra.
These gland-cells are very widely dispersed throughout the
endoderm. They occur, perhaps, in greatest abundance on the
sides of the villi j sometimes, however, one or two may occur
at the apex of a villus. Rarely, at the apex of a villus, a group
of two, three, or four small cubical darkly-staining cells is
found (fig. 19). Whether these are or are not stages in the
development or multiplication of gland-cells I was unable to
determine. That they are, however, the antecedents of the
free corpuscles which at certain periods occur in the somatic
fluid I see no reason to doubt.
The gland-cells of Myriothela have a rather wider distribution
than those of Hydra, where they are restricted to the