1899.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 133 



attributed by the describer: Epidermis pigmented; each segment ex- 

 cept the first bears a dorsal and ventral bundle of setis; the ventral 

 bundle is lacking on somite XII, its position corresponding to the 

 male pore; the sperm ducts form convoluted loops which extend into 

 somite XV, and terminate in fusiform enlargements which receive 

 the prostate glands and open into the bursse ; the spermatic sacs are 

 large and extend through several segments; the spermathecae do 

 not communicate Avith the intestine, but are continuous the one 

 with the other, and have each at the base of the ampulla two or 

 three diverticula; the nephridia are much convoluted, with few 

 nuclei; the dorsal vessel begins in XII, and contains a cardiac 

 gland; there is a cephalic pore, but no dorsal pores; in the pharyn- 

 geal epidermis are found numerous branching pigment cells; there 

 are no saUvary glands and the oesophagus is continuous without 

 special modification into the intestine; the coelom of somites IV to 

 VIII is for the most part filled with unicellular glands. 



Nearly all of these characters, as has been pointed out above, 

 are common to all species of Mesenchytixeus ; only the following 

 of those mentioned by Emery are at all peculiar, viz., the 

 pigmented epidermis, spermatheca without openings into the oesoph- 

 agus, the elongated sperm ducts and the origin of the dorsal vessel 

 in the clitellar somite. The first, although very remarkable, can 

 hardly be given generic value. The second is an error, as the 

 spermatheca do communicate with the oesophagus by a small pore ; 

 nor is the union of the two spermathecae unique, as I find this char- 

 acter in a Philadelphia species which is strictly Mesenchytraeid 

 in every other respect. The unimportance of the relative lengths 

 of the sperm duct and funnel has already been commented upon. 

 The extension of the ducts posteriorly beyond the limits of 

 somite XII is more important, but a similar course of the sperm 

 ducts is described by Eisen for Enchytvceus {Neoenchytrceus) 

 vejdovskyi, while in other members of this genus the ducts are 

 <!losely coiled within somite XII. INIichaelsen lays consider- 

 able stress on the origin of the dorsal blood vessel anterior or 

 posterior to the clitellum, but the character cannot of itself be of 

 much importance, owing to its variability. Thus in 3f. heauvieri 

 Mich, the dorsal vessel arises in XVIII, in M. flavidm Mich, in 

 XIII, and in an undetermined American species in XII. It 

 seems to me, therefore, that the creation of the new genus Melan- 



