After 15 minutes' contact, the mature virus was found adsorbed on the surface of the cells but separated from them by a narrow gap in which phosphotungstic acid staining was sometimes able to reveal an extraneous coat which appeared as an amorphous layer on the outer aspect of the plasma membrane. When mixing continued for longer the particles were present in deep invaginations or actual cytoplasmic vacuoles, with their outer layers in various stages of stripping and digestion. The stripped, naked, central portion of the virus was occasionally found in these vacuoles but was more commonly free in the cytoplasmic matrix; the mode of transition between these sites could not be determined. Where contact continued for 2 hours these phenomena were much less frequently observed.

The larger particles of colloidal gold were ingested in the same way as the virus, but smaller ones were taken up in micropinocytosis vesicles. The gold passed through membrane-bounded cytoplasmic spaces to accumulate in vacuoles from which, in contrast to herpes particles, it did not escape.

These findings are discussed, and considered with particular reference to their bearing on the initiation of infection, the uptake and disposal of particles by cells, and the influence on the latter of virus morphology.