PROTEOLEPAS B1VINCTA. 597 



anterior cephalic segments are aborted. There are no 

 branchiae. I may state that within the abdomen, along 

 the dorsal surface, there was either a lacuna or a delicate 

 vessel, apparently of a circulatory nature, of considerable 

 diameter, which, near the extreme posterior end of the body, 

 gave out branches. 



Female Reproductive Organs. — 'The eight anterior seg- 

 ments of the body, with the exception of a small space at the 

 two ends, are occupied by an immense (e, e), opaque, ovarian 

 sack. The tissue forming it is delicate, and presents a 

 peculiar cellular aspect : it is slightly attached to the 

 corium on the ventral surface of the body, and to the oblique 

 latero-ventral muscles. Internally, at the anterior end, it 

 is thickly coated by cellular matter, the cells varying from 

 souths to less than ^th of an inch in diameter, becoming 

 in parts confluent, and the whole forming a dark orange- 

 coloured mass. In the more central parts of the sack this 

 cellular matter became aggregated into little pellets, which, 

 in proceeding towards the posterior end of the sack, gra- 

 dually increased in size, from about tilths of an inch in 

 diameter, and at last appeared as almost mature and per- 

 fect ova of a broadly oval figure. Their size, as we see, is 

 small, and their number almost infinite. I carefully ex- 

 amined all round this ovarian sack, and could detect no 

 oviducts ; nor from analogy could they be expected : I have 

 no doubt that the ova burst forth by the rupture, pro- 

 bably, of the posterior end of the sack and of the overlying 

 corium ; and that they accumulate beneath the external mem- 

 brane of the body, until this is moulted, the rupture beneath 

 being in the meantime healed, when they are freed, or 

 perhaps temporarily protected in the old moulted envelope 

 of the body. 



On each side, within the first two segments of the body, 

 and projecting a little before the great ovarian sack (e), two 

 gut-formed organs (/) may be seen, even from the outside, 

 owing to their opacity and dark colour. They lie near the 

 external surface; the first pair of latero-ventral oblique muscles 

 passing between them and the ovarian sack. They are 

 formed of a branching, grape-like mass of opaque, orange- 

 coloured cells. They are intimately united, at their pos- 



