After the spireme has broken up into separate chromosomes, these particles come into a position of temporary, and unstable, equiôÙlibôÙrium near the periphery of the equatorial plane, and here they tend to place themselves in a symmetrical arrangement (Fig. 52). The particles are rounded, linear, sometimes annular, similar in form and size to one another; and lying as they do in a fluid, and subject to a symmetrical system of forces, it is not surprising that they arrange themselves in a symmetrical manner, the precise arrangement depending on the form of the particles themselves. This symmetry may perhaps be due, as has already been suggested, to induced electrical charges. In discussing Brauerãs observations on the splitting of the chromatic filament, and the symmetrical arrangement of the separate granules, in Ascaris megalocephala, Lillie38 {181} remarks: ãThis behaviour is strongly suggestive of the division of a colloidal particle under the influence of its surface electrical charge, and of the effects of mutual repulsion in keeping the