STUDIES IN EARTHWORM CHLORAGOGUE. 9 1 



found in the worms refusing to eat, because a few hours (over 

 night) sufficed for a worm to gorge itself with whatever substance 

 was placed before it even though it were no more than common 

 white blotting paper. The worm, when the proper amount of 

 moisture and the right limits of temperature were provided, 

 thrived as well on fuchsin-stained earth ; on milk-saturated earth; 1 

 on finely divided meat scraps ; on moist bread ; on vegetables 

 such as finely chopped leaves of cabbage, lettuce, etc., as it did 

 on its customary earth diet. But no effect due to this varied 

 feeding was observed on the chloragogue. This being so it was 

 determined to try and affect the chloragogue through starving. 

 A number of large thrifty worms were deprived of both food and 

 water for as long a time as they could be kept alive, which was 

 three days. In this time they lost 44 per cent, in weight, but a 

 microscopical study in cross section of a worm thus treated, while 

 it showed a great shrinkage in the cells of other tissues, did not 

 show the chloragogue as having undergone any essential change. 

 It cannot here be said that the function of the chloragogue has 

 been definitely learned ; but the following inferences in the light 

 of the foregoing and what is to follow seem justified. Finding 

 the chloragogue in such close proximity to that 

 part of the blood system which transports the 

 newly absorbed food (see Fig. i) dorsal blood 

 vessel, dorso-intestinal blood vessels and aortic 

 arches and within the typhlosole, and ceasing 

 to be abundant on the outside of the alimentary 

 wall at the point where the typhlosole ends FlG - J - Showing 



+ i-i P pVi Tfict f*n st i c* 



within the alimentary canal, would indicate that abundance of chlor . 



the chloragogue had an important relation to agogue surrounding 



the elaboration of food. But the lifeless condi- the dorso-intestinal 



tion of the adult chloragogue and its apparently b } ood vessels ' . 



rr dorso-intestinal 



living condition in the very young worm, indicate blood vessel with (*) 

 that possibly the function of the chloragogue is chloragogue cells 

 performed in the early development of the worm, surrounding it. 

 and that in the adult it has become functionless, although in the 



1 Here it may be added that in histological preparations of milk-fed worms, treated 

 with osmic acid, the characteristic black-colored fat globules could be distinguished 

 in the epithelial cells of the alimentary wall but no trace of them was found in the 

 chloragogue cells. 



