The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 1 (of 4) : $b Separate memoirsBalfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Science
The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 1 (of 4) : $b Separate memoirs
Balfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Embryology; Zoology
Lining the two sides of the segmentation furrows there is present in
sections a layer which stains deeply with colouring reagents; and the
surface of the blastoderm is stained in the same manner. In neither case is
it permissible to suppose that any membrane-like structure is present. In
many cases a similar very delicate, but deeply-stained line, invests the
vacuolar cavities, but the fluid filling these remains quite unstained.
When distinct segments are formed, each of these is surrounded by a
similarly stained line.
The yolk-spherules are so numerous, and render even the thinnest section so
opaque, that I have failed to make satisfactory observations on the
behaviour of the nucleus. I find nuclei in many of the segments, though it
is very difficult even to see them, and only in very favourable specimens
can their structure be studied. In some cases, two of them lie one on each
side of a furrow; and in one case at the extreme end of a furrow I could
see two peculiar aggregations of yolk-spherules united by a band through
which the furrow, had it been continued, would have passed. The connection
(if any exists) between this appearance and the formation of the fresh
nuclei in the segments, I have been unable to elucidate.
The peculiar appearances attending the formation of fresh nuclei in
connection with cell-division, which have recently been described by so
many observers, have hitherto escaped my observation at this stage of the
segmentation, though I shall describe them in a later stage. A nucleus of
this stage is shewn on Pl. 6, fig. 6_c_. It is lobate in form and is
divided by lines into areas in each of which a deeply-stained granule is
situated.
The succeeding stages of segmentation present from the surface no fresh
features of great interest. The somewhat irregular (Pl. 6, figs. 4 and 5)
circular line, which divides the peripheral larger from the central smaller
segments, remains for a long time conspicuous. It appears to be the
representative of the horizontal furrow which, in the Batrachian ovum,
separates the smaller pigmented spheres from the larger spheres of the
lower pole of the egg.
As the segments become smaller and smaller, the distinction between the
peripheral and the central segments becomes less and less marked; but it
has not disappeared by the time that the segments become too small to be
seen with the simple lens. When the spheres become smaller than in the
germinal disc represented on Pl. 6, fig. 5, the features of segmentation
can be more easily and more satisfactorily studied by means of sections.
To the features presented in sections, both of the latter and of the
earlier blastoderms, I now return. A section of one of the earlier germinal
discs, of about the age of the one represented on Pl. 6, fig. 4, is shewn
in Pl. 6, fig. 7.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account