In a study of the neuter plural in Vergil by Dr. John F. Gummere it was proved that the ratio of the nominative, accusative, and vocative neuter singular nouns to the corresponding cases of the plural is considerably lower than the ratio for prose, and that this excess of nominative, accusative, and vocative neuter plural nouns in Vergil results from their metrical convenience for the production of short syllables, which, because of the syncope in Italic, are much less numerous in Latin than in Greek, from which the dactylic hexameter was borrowed. In a similar study of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, Dr. Margaret W. Herr attained the same result as Dr. Gummere. However, a study of the iambic and trochaic verse of Plautus and Terence by Dr. Jessie M. Glenn has shown that the ratio of these case-forms in these meters is similar to that found in prose, and that the difference from Vergil and Ovid is to be accounted for by the difference between the requirements of iambic and trochaic verse and those of the dactylic hexameter.