No. 3.] ALLOLOBOPHORA FOETIDA. 487 
eggs in the pronuclear stages, I find only eight eggs with a 
cleavage spindle and one with the first cleavage completed. 
The most marked cases of unequally developed eggs in the 
same cocoon are those in which one or more of the eggs has 
reached the metaphase of the first cleavage spindle, while the 
rest are oocytes, 2d order, — the sperm being still at the rod 
stage} 
I have found only two sich cocoons, and in one of these the 
retarded eggs show varying stages of structural disintegration. 
Vejdovsky, in his classic work, « Entwicklungsgeschichtliche 
Untersuchungen ”’ (19), describes the freshly deposited cocoons 
of the Lumbricidae as “ ziemlich weich,”’ whereas the cocoons of 
Rhynchelmis, which he has seex deposited, he designates as 
“ganz weich”’ (p. 36). This, added to the fact that among his 
figures of eggs of Al/olobophora foctida are none showing a first 
maturation spindle or a fertilization cone, convinces me that 
the youngest eggs of A//olobophora foetida found by Vejdovsky 
are those represented in his Figs. 8 and 9, Pl. XIII, v1z., oocytes, 
2d order (fertilized eggs, with the first polar body formed, 
metaphase of second maturation spindle, and male attraction- 
sphere), though he has omitted the sperm rod. His figures 
of Lumbricus rubellus, however, show somewhat earlier stages 
(Taf. XIII, Figs. 1-4). In Figs. 2-4 he represents a structure 
undoubtedly answering to the cones of Allolobophora foetida, 
though he saw no sperm thread in connection with it, and his 
description (p. 68) of the probable method of fertilization is not 
supported by the facts, as seen in Al/olobophora foetida. In 
Pl. XIII, Fig. 10, Vejdovsky has figured what he interprets as an 
unripe egg ; but I am compelled to question this interpretation 
and for the following reasons: only in the ovaries have I found 
unripe eggs, — eggs in the germinal vesicle stage, — never in 
the cocoons, not even in those seen deposited. This forces me 
to doubt the possibility of such eggs being found in cocoons 
containing eggs in the cleavage stages.2 As stated above, 
1 Foot (6), Fig. ro. 
2 Vejdovsky (19), p. 40: “Dass das Ei der weiteren Entwicklung nicht fahig 
ist, beweist der Umstand, dass ich es stundenlang ohne jede Veranderung beobach- 
tete, wahrend die iibrigen Eier desselben Cocons in der Furchung begriffen 
waren.” 
