262 



DISCOVERY REPORTS 



with a small everted rim at the mouth. In one specimen a rudimentary third funnel was 

 seen, as a small bud on the side of one of the larger ones. I do not remember noticing 

 this particular abnormality before. The vas deferens, 20 /x in diameter, forms a close coil 

 on each side, which may extend into the hinder half of the segment amongst the large 



ova. 



The penial body is of the enchytraeine rather than of the lumbricilline type. It con- 

 sists of a number of pear-shaped masses of gland cells, about eight such masses being 

 visible in a single longitudinal section, and the total number on each side being perhaps 

 in the neighbourhood of two dozen. These gland masses are closely compacted together, 

 separated, however, from each other by, and each individual pear-shaped mass more or 

 less enveloped in, muscular strands ; there is no common capsule binding the whole 

 together, and the upper (dorsal) ends of the masses are without covering. The glands 

 are composed of cells derived from the surface epithelium, and discharge on the surface 

 around the small aperture of the vas deferens, which comes to the surface after passing 

 between the glandular masses. The muscular fibres which intervene between the gland 

 masses belong to a numerous series of oblique strands which pass upwards from the 

 neighbourhood of the male pore to the body- wall in the more dorsal part of the segment ; 

 a number of such strands occur also in segment xiii. 



The spermathecal ampulla (Fig. 13) is elongated, pear-shaped, and passes without 

 any sharp demarcation into the duct ; it communicates with the oesophagus by a passage, 



which can sometimes be seen to be patent, and is no doubt always 

 so at some time of the sexual history of the animal ; from some of 

 the sections it appears as if the connection with the oesophagus 

 were effected by means of a special diverticulum of the ampulla. 

 The portion of the apparatus which serves as duct is curved ; it 

 has around its ectal end a number of small pear-shaped glands. 

 These glands are derived from the surface epithelium in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of the aperture, where they discharge, 

 and are not, as is usually the case, cells of the lining epithelium 

 of the duct which have elongated and burst through the muscular 

 coat of the duct wall ; they are three or four in number on each 

 side — perhaps sometimes even fewer. 



Copulatory glands are present and of moderately large size in 

 segment xiv, spreading out to a distance of about 80 ;a on each side 

 of the cord, but they do not cover its dorsal surface. In xiii are 

 smaller glands, as also in xi and x; these last (in x) are very small. 



The present species occupies (like quite a number of other forms) a position between 

 the genera Enchytraeus and Lumbricilhis. Allying it with Lumbricillus are the lumbricil- 

 line setae, the red blood, and the postpharyngeal bulbs which replace the salivary 

 glands ; copulatory glands are also general in Lumbricillus, exceptional in Enchytraeus. 

 But the most distinctive characters of the genus Lumbricillus— \ht numerous and large 

 pear-shaped testicular lobes or sacs, each enclosing within a membrane all stages in the 



Fig. 13. Enchytraeus col- 

 pites; spermatheca. "/. 

 glands at ectal end. 



