DESCRIPTIONS OF EARTHWORMS. 251 



and our West-Indian specimens, 1 cannot but think that 

 they all belong to the same species, which I propose to 

 call E. decipiens, the first described worm on which Per- 

 rier based the genus Eudrilus. 



P.S. This note being already in press, I received from 

 Mr. Beddard a paper, published in the Proceed, of the Royal 

 Soc. of Edinburgh, Vol. XIII, which contains a more de- 

 tailed description of the female generative apparatus , illu- 

 strated by several figures. In dealing with the morpho- 

 logy of these organs , he points out their strong resem- 

 blance with the female generative organs of Hirudo , a 

 fact not agreeing with the results of recent investigators 

 (Lang , Bourne a. o.), who regard the Hirudinea to be 

 more closely allied to the Platyhelminthes than to the Anne- 

 lida. The arguments of Mr. Bourne in favour of this view 

 (Quart. Journ. Micr. Sc. 1884) however appear to me by 

 no means conclusive, and I believe the Leeches to present 

 several other points of affinity with the Oligochaeta. Their 

 hermaphrodite condition , in connection with the presence 

 of median generative pores , is not only a Platyhelminth 

 character, as stated by Bourne; for all Oligochaeta are 

 hermaphrodite, and Perichaeta has a single median female 

 opening; their highly developed vascular system (especially 

 of the Rhynchobdellidae) shows in its arrangement many 

 points of resemblance with that of the Oligochaeta; they 

 possess well-developed nephridia; they present a clitellum 

 and have the practice of forming cocoons like the greater 

 part of Oligochaeta. The presence of suckers, being an 

 adaptive character produced by parasitism , seems of no 

 great importance to me , and is also found in Branchiohdella 

 among the Oligochaeta and in Malacohdella among the Ne- 

 mertines. 



Notes from thie Leyden JMuseum, Vol. IX 



17 



