Spermatogenesis of the Lepidoptera

Abstract

I SHOULD be glad of the hospitality of the columns of NATURE to reply to two observers whose papers in the December number of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science have only recently come under my attention. Dr. Robert H. Bowen, of Columbia University, has investigated the Spermatogenesis of the Lepidoptera, a subject which formed the first part of my series of papers on the “Cytoplasmic Inclusions of the Germ Cells”. His account differs from previous ones chiefly in two respects—he states that the mitochondrial part of the spermatid is not a skein or spireme but a plate-work, and what is a much more interesting objection, he denies the previous descriptions of the metamorphosis of this skein into a tail-sheath, and instead describes it as degenerating, and the tail region being formed of a new central substance.