Being Transactions of the S. Afr. PJiil. Soviet jf. Vol. XV IT. Hi? 



retained by a bending in of the tips of the tentacles of the inner 

 circle. 



In the particular group of animals under observation nearly all 

 the individuals carried eggs and larvie when first found in the 

 beginning of May. A few had them up to the end of June. On 

 November 10th one specimen was observed to have an egg in the 

 body, and by the 20th of the same month more than 90 per cent. 

 had conspicuous clusters of eggs and larvye in the tentacles. The 

 comparatively sudden and simultaneous appearance of these was 

 somewhat striking. 



Soon all of the specimens bore eggs and larvae, and this continued 

 up to about the beginning of March of the following year, when a 

 few were seen without them. By May 12th none of the group under 

 observation had eggs. In some of the individuals which were more 

 carefully watched a peculiar occurrence, for which I cannot suggest 

 an explanation, was observed. The animal which had remained with 

 body and lophophore with its egg mass fully extended for months, 

 totally disappeared, leaving only the projecting tube. This seemed 

 a confirmation of the suggestion of the annual dying off of the 

 Phoronis. A few days (8-10) afterwards, however, the same animal 

 was observed projecting (to a less extent) from the tube, but the 

 lophophore was much smaller, the tentacles being only about two- 

 thirds their former length and without eggs. 



LopJwphoral Organ, LophopJwral Gap, Epistome. — From the 

 observations just described on the method of discharge of ova, it 

 is apparent that the projecting leaf-like fold of the lophophoral organ 

 acts in such a way as to form a closed passage from the aperture of 

 the nephridial duct to the brood cavity, the glandular part supplying 

 the mucus in which the eggs are enveloped and bound together. 

 The whole organ might be described, therefore, as a glandular 

 oviducal furrow. 



Contrary to what has been observed in other species, I have not 

 found this organ absent in any specimen with eggs, though sections 

 of a large number of individuals might show that this is true of 

 P. capensis also. 



The lophophoral gap between mouth and anus has received a good 

 deal of attention, and there has been some speculation as to its 

 function. It is a very striking opening in the circle of tentacles 

 as seen in sections, but it does not exist as such in the expanded 

 living animal, in which the gap is no larger than the spaces 

 between the tentacles. This will be made clear from fig. 1, 

 which is from the living animal. It seems quite out of the 

 question that the inhalent current of water directed by the 



