500 J. C. BLOOMFIELD AND A. G, BOURNE, 
On the OccuRRENCE of CorpuscLEs in the Rep VascuLaRr 
Fiurp of Cumropops. By J. E. Buomriz.p, B.A., and 
A. G. Bourne. 
Ir used to be (or we may even say that it is) an accepted 
commonplace of zoological science, that the red vascular 
fluid of the Cheetopoda is devoid of corpuscles. Certain 
exceptions have been admitted, but they have been regarded 
as exceptions. In reality they appear to be no exceptions 
but the rule. Professor E. Ray Lankester (‘ Quart. Journ. 
Mic. Soc., vol. xviii, 1878, p. 68) has demonstrated the 
existence of colourless corpuscles in the red vascular fluid of 
the earth-worm, and has described them as “small, oblong, 
flattened, fusiform bodies, with clear, sharp outline, beyond 
which occasionally appears a small quantity of ragged pro- 
toplasm,” and considers them to be merely nuclei of the 
cells forming the walls of the vessels which have become 
“‘ free.” 
In the above-mentioned paper there is a complete account 
of what was hitherto known through the researches of M. 
Ed. Claparéde and M. De Quatrefages, as to the existence 
of similar corpuscles in the red vascular fluids of other 
Chetopods. 
Since the publication of this paper, Dr. Franz Vejdovsky 
(* Beitrage fiir Vergleichenden Morphologie der Anneliden. 1. 
Monographie der Enchytreiden.” Prag, 1879) has described 
similar corpuscles in Criodrilus, and mentions them as occur- 
ring in Tubifex, about which latter genus Dr. Vejdovsky 
promises to say more on a future occasion. These cor- 
puscles have then been hitherto observed in the following 
genera :—Lumbricus, Criodrilus, and Tubifex, among the 
Oligocheta; Ophelia, Cirrhatulus, Terebella, Staurocepha- 
lus, and Syllidea, among the Polychaeta. 
We are enabled to add to this list Eunice and Nereis, in 
both of which genera we find similar corpuscles. ‘These 
corpuscles are rendered evident by treating a portion of part 
of the tissue which is well supplied by these vessels, e.g. a 
muscular septum or parapodium, or even better, merely a 
portion of one of the larger vessels removed to a slide with 
two pairs of forceps, the blood being kept in it, with osmic 
acid in l-per cent. solution, followed by picrocarmin, the 
excess of the latter being removed by blotting-paper, and 
the tissue washed first with water and afterwards with gly- 
