GENERATIVE ORGANS. 565 



its free end, and its other end is prolonged, without any diminu- 

 tion in thickness, as the tail. 



FEMALE. The ovaries (Fig. 343 bis) consist of a pair of tubes 

 closely applied together, and continued posteriorly into the 

 oviducts. The oviducts, after a short course, become dilated 

 into the uteruses, which join behind and open to the exterior 

 by the median genital opening. The two ovaries are bound 

 together in a common muscular sheath and are connected to the 

 floor of the pericardium in the posterior part of the body cavity 

 either by a cord (the funiculus, 1) proceeding from their morpho- 

 logical front end (end remote from entrance of oviduct) , or along 

 their whole length by a kind of mesentery. In P. Tholloni and 

 a few neotropical species the ovaries are unattached and float 

 freely in the body-cavity. The ova are produced by the epi- 

 thelium of the ovarian tubes (endogenous, as in the neotropical 

 species, Fig. 343 bis) or are developed in follicular out- 

 growths of the ovaries (exogenous, as in the Cape, Australasian 

 and New Britain forms). Occasionally the ovarian tubes com- 

 municate ; this is carried furthest in the Malayan species in 

 which they are completely united to form one ovarian sac. In 

 P. Tholloni the opposite extreme is found, the ovaries as well 

 as the oviducts being entirely separate from one another. Except 

 in the last named species the oviducts are always united at 

 their point of junction with the ovary. 



The ovaries often contain spermatozoa, some of which project 

 through the ovarian wall into the body-cavity, so that the ovary 

 has almost a hairy appearance in freshly dissected specimens. 

 Spermatozoa are not found in the uterus and oviducts and it is 

 not known how they reach the ovaries or receptacula seminis 

 (see below). In most of the species there is a globular recep- 

 taculum seminis (4) opening by two short ducts close together 

 into the oviduct, and in the neotropical and Malayan species 

 and in P. Tholloni there is a small receptaculum ovorum with 

 extremely thin walls opening into the oviduct by a short duct 

 just in front of the receptaculum seminis (Fig. 343 bis, 3). The 

 epithelium of the latter structure is clothed with actively moving 

 cilia, at least in the neotropical species. The receptacula 

 seminis usually contain spermatozoa which are then absent from 

 or sparse in the ovaries. In Neo-Peripatus eggs are present in 

 the receptacula ovorum. 



