314 J- Beard 



by the eclioes of language, recalliog rather the politicai platform than 

 tlie scientific arena. 



Before exainining the remainder of Wheelek's ten paragraphs 

 directed against ray views, it may be urged, that Wheeler has, as 

 yet, produced no evidence, clear and above suspicion, showing a) that 

 Nansen's Organs in the dorsicolous forms of il/, glabrum are ovaries, 

 and not, as I maintain, testes, and b) that the dorsicolous forms be- 

 come hermaphrodite and migrate to the disc. 



On pag. 23S Wheeler writes: — »Beard's observations on these 

 young, which it pleases him to call ,complemental males', will be 

 considered in the sequel«; and on pag. 260: — »in Beard's paper 

 the cysticolous Myzostoma inflator and M. murrayi are confidently put 

 down as ,perfectly unisexual', an expression, which should be com- 

 pared with v. Graff's rather guarded remarks on these species in 

 the paper, to which Beard evidently refers«. 



The personal flavour of the former passage may be, perhaps, 

 excused by its mildness as compared with other expressions employed 

 in the work, which I must decline quoting. 



During my stay in Naples in 1883 — 84 the sexual characters 

 of the dorsicolous forms were tested by every means in my power. 

 As no particle of evidence to the contrary could be found, it was 

 finally concluded, that they were true complemental males (in Darwin's 

 sense) which remained male all their lives. Then von Graff's notice 

 of the two dioecious cysticolous forms arrived, and confirmed me in 

 my conclusiou. Even now repeated study of von Graff's paper (3) 

 does not enable me to find von Graff's »rather guarded remarks« 

 referred to, but not quoted by, Wheeler. But one does meet with — 

 and this was also there in 18S4 — a diagnostic table (pag. 126) of 

 22 species of Myzostoma^ in which M. cysticolum^ M. iiißator^ and 

 M. murrayi are grouped together as »getrennt geschlechtliche 

 Myzostomen, ohne Saugnäpfe, paarweise in Cysten ihrer Wirthe 

 lebend«. 



And on pag, 10 of his Challenger Report v. Graff wTites: — 

 »the Suggestion made by von Willemoes-Suhm, that some Myzo- 

 stomida were in all probability dioecious, has been amply verified by 

 my investigations« etc. And again, on pag. 11, in the section on the 

 sexual Organisation of the Myzostomida cysticola he remarks: — 



»I am able to state, that each individuai is either male or 



female, and that in addition tlie two sexes are unlike in appearance, 

 the female being usually 50 — 100 times as large as the male«. These 



