Od the generative Organs and Products of Tomopteris onisciformis E. 435 



But I ani unable to follow Vejdovsky when he distinguishes 

 between "Samenleiter" and "Samenklumpen" and especially when he 

 accounts for the latter by saying : "Die Samenfäden können deshalb 

 nicht gleich von den wimpernden Samentrichtern aufgefangen werden 

 und häufen sich rings um dieselben in der Leibeshöhle an." There 

 surely must be some other reason for the sperms being heaped up in 

 exactly similar situations of both sides of the body. The peristaltic 

 movements of the intestine would prevent this. The spermatozoa, as 

 Carpenter »S: Claparède and Greeff saw, were within a distinct 

 sac, whose walls I was able to see, and the outer opening at least 

 of this sac was clearly visible. But, when we come to the fixing of 

 what is testis, I agree with Vejdovsky that the testes and the ovaries 

 are developed in similar positions in the ditierent sexes. The testes 

 of Carpenter ^l Clapari^de occupied the basal and rounded portion 

 of the sub-ventral appendages. There cannot, therefore, be any doubt 

 that their testes correspond to the seminal vesicles already described, 

 for their testes and my seminal vesicles are found in the same posi- 

 tions. They describe them^): "Eight pairs of ovoidal bodies from 

 which the rudimentary pinnules appeared to spring being really the 

 testes, which occupy the parts of the perivisceral cavity that are 

 prolonged into the short lateral appendages whereon these pinnules 

 are really borne. Each testis (tab. 7, fig. 2) is an undivided sac, 

 whose c^ivity, when the organ has attained its maturity, is almost 

 entirely filled with a mass of spermatozoa. The individual parts of 

 this mass are in continual movement upon each other, their motion 

 being kept up chiefly, if not entirely, by the action of the cilia clothing 

 that part of the inner wall of the testis which is near its external 

 orifice. ' In the testes we should expect to find male generative cells 

 either Ijeing formed from other active generating tissue, or a common 

 mass of male tissue, but in no one of the many sections, that I cut, 

 did I find either the one or the other. Further, it is hardly likely 

 that the individual parts would be "in continual movement upon each 

 other", or that the walls of an undivided testicular sac would be clothed 

 with cilia. These naturalists seem therefore to have totally misappre- 

 hended the nature of the seminal vesicles, and, consequently, have been 

 led to describe "rudimentary ovaria" in mature males. One is able to 

 speak with more certainty in their case, as my observations were 

 made on the same species, but Greeff made his observations as to 

 the male organs on two Guinea species, T. rolasi and T. mariana, 



1) p. 63. 



