128 Macteay Memoriat Vouume. 
Max Weber’s account of the ovary in 7. Semper7 differs considerably from the 
above. He speaks of it as spherical, and describes and figures the ova as polygonal in 
shape. In these respects his species would seem to differ not only from all the 
Australian and New Zealand species, but also from that from Brazil, so near an ally 
of 7. Senpert in other respects. 
The oveduct* is a rather narrow, curved tube leading from the ovary and 
receptaculum vitelli to the uterus. Its walls are muscular, containing an external 
circular and an internal longitudinal layer of muscular fibres. The lumen is lined by 
a non-nucleated layer of a material which is probably protoplasmic. 
The sac formerly called by me veceptaculum seminis (r. v.), and similarly named 
by Weber, is a median more or less ovoid or ellispsoidal sac, which is situated in the 
middle line in a deep bay in the posterior wall of the intestine. It varies immensely 
in size, according to circumstances. When not greatly distended, it has a tolerably 
thick protoplasmic investment of a granular character, exactly similar to the 
corresponding layer in the vesicula seminalis, with a small number of large nuclei. 
This is clothed externally with a thin layer of muscular fibres. When the sac is 
distended the wall becomes relatively thin. 
As to the function of this receptacle; I had noticed spermatozoa in it in living 
specimens ; and finding it in sections full of granular matter, I supposed this to be a 
mass of altered spermatozoa, and decribed the sac in my former paper as always full 
of spermatozoa. An examination of living specimens of the more transparent 
species during the period of sexual activity has, however, since shown me that this sac 
is really a yolk receptacle. Towards the period when aripe ovum is to be discharged, 
the receptacle becomes filled with yolk matter, which greatly distends it, until it 
assumes nearly the size of the mature egg. Surplus spermatozoa are to be found 
mixed with this mass, probably together with surplus prostate secretion. 
The uterus (ootype) (2¢.) resembles the oviduct in structure, but is wider and has 
thicker walls. When it contains an egg it becomes enormously distended and the wall 
becomes thinned out. Into its interior open the ducts of the shell-glands.+ The 
latter are unicellular glands of large size and irregular shape, situated around the 
uterus, each with a single large nucleus, and with a duct which is simply a long and 
narrow process of the cell terminating by perforating the wall of the uterus, where 
it presents a little vesicular enlargement acting doubtless as a receptacle for the 
secretion. A few of the shell-glands open into the distal part of the oviduct. 
* See former paper, Pl. xxi. fig. 12. 
+ Former paper, Pl. xxu. fig. 13. 
