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JOHN W. SCOTT. 



buckets, but this practice was not often followed, for placing the 

 sexes together did not cause them to discharge sexual products. 

 In the laboratory all worms were carefully washed and isolated in 

 separate dishes of sea-water. Eggs rarely fertilize if removed by cut- 

 ting open the body wall ; if any considerable number are mature 

 they will later be discharged in an apparently normal manner. The 

 quotation from Mead, concerning the scarcity of ripe eggs and 

 ripe spermatozoa, gives an accurate idea of my own results in that 

 particular. But the time of discharge appears to be not so definite 

 as one might think if guided solely by his description. Table I. 



TABLE I. 



Showing time of day when Amphitt ite begin to deposit sexual products. In 

 the earlier work no record was kept of the males, hence the small number given in 

 this table. 



gives little support to his statement in regard to the time of day 

 at which the worms deposit their eggs. As will be observed 

 twelve of these worms, nearly one half of the entire number, de- 

 posited their sexual products between 6 :oo and 8 : 30 P. M. An 

 almost equal number shed their products between 2 :oo and 5 :OO 

 o'clock, and two specimens were ovipositing between 1 1 : OO 

 A. M. and i : oo P. M. Injury will sometimes cause Amphitrite 

 to throw off their eggs, and of course it is possible that these two 

 vvorms were injured in some way. However another fact must 

 not be overlooked. It was noticed that nearly all worms depos- 

 ited products from three to five hours after the low tide at which 

 they were collected. This fact is undoubtedly important and 

 probably explains some of the discrepancies found in the table. 

 In a few instances collections were made between 5 : oo and 8 : OO 

 A. M. ; more frequently they were brought to the laboratory 

 about noon ; but, owing to local conditions, by far the largest 

 number of worms was collected when the low tide occurred in 



