564 NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN EARTHWORMS, 



a worm two white flocculent masses are seen filling the whole upper 

 portions of somites x and xi, quite obscuring what lies below. 

 At first sight they look like two additional pairs of testes. 

 Under the microscope they are seen to be masses of spermatozoa 

 which have been probably dehisced into these segments from the 

 two pairs of testes in somites ix and xn, and have been coagulated 

 by the spirit. The masses do not seem to be enclosed in any 

 membrane, and as soon as they are touched they break up into 

 fragments. The ciliated anterior portions of the vasa deferentia 

 crammed with spermatoza lie below these masses, the intestinal 

 glands and the hearts lying above or partly in front of them, but 

 they are free. Hence in this species there appear to be no 

 vesiculse seminales, the functions of such being here performed by 

 the segmental cavities. The prostates, of which there is a pair lying 

 in somites xvni and xix, one on each side, are flattened, white 

 bodies, transversely divided into lobes. The two prostatic ducts 

 arise from the inner side of the anterior ends, and, after a very short 

 distance, are joined by the distal portions of the vasa deferentia; 

 the common ducts, which are £7-shaped with the bends turned 

 forward and lying in somite xvu, increase in calibre, especially in 

 the proximal portions, and may possibly function as penes, but I 

 have not been able to find any penial setae. In the one Mb. 

 Wilson specimen dissected the £7-shaped portions of the common 

 ducts were turned backwards and the bends lay in xix. The 

 two ovaries are large, flattened, situated in segment xin, 

 attached low down to the posterior face of the mesentery 

 between somites xn and xin. The oviducts commence by 

 plicated funnels in xin, situated opposite the ovaries, and open 

 on the ventral surface of the next segment by two apertures 

 instead of one, as is usual in other species of this genus. Th. re 

 are two pairs of spermathecae, — a pair in each of segments vin 

 and ix — and they open anteriorly. They are pear-shaped or rounded 

 when distended, with short stalks, each of them having a caecum 

 as long as, but much narrow than itself, which lies in front of it, 

 and opens into the duct near its orifice ; the free extremity of each 

 caecum dilated. 



