84 WILLIAM BLAXLAND BENHAM. 



glands is a reddish, ovoid body opening into the intestine by 

 means of a short, narrow stalk, and constricted near its free ex- 

 tremity in such a way that this portion has the appearance of 

 a short cone, inverted on the end of the ovoid portion. 



The structure of these glands resembles mainly that of the 

 calciferous oesophageal glands ofLumbricus; they appear in 

 transverse sections to be made up of a number of tubules cut 

 across, lined by an epithelium (the nature of which could not 

 satisfactorily be made out, owing to the condition of the worm), 

 resting upon a basement membrane (PL IX, fig. 43). Between 

 and around the tubules are large irregular blood spaces, com- 

 municating with an abundant vascular network on the surface 

 of the gland. In the lumina of the tubules I observed oily- 

 looking globules (a) of various sizes. Masses of these were 

 found in the alimentary canal itself in the region of these 

 glands. These globules appear to be the secretion of these 

 glands, and from analogy with what is known in Lumbricus 

 and Microchseta one may consider them as carbonate of 

 lime, though I did not use any tests in this case. Similar 

 glands occur also in Acanthodrilus; and Beddard, in his de- 

 scription of them,^ says that they are made up of lamellae of 

 connective tissue carrying blood-vessels, which dip into the 

 lumen of the gland. He does not say whether these lamellae 

 anastomose, so as to give the appearance of tubules, and from his 

 description it would appear that in that genus they do not do so. 

 In somite xvi the intestine suddenly changes its character ; 

 it becomes about three times its previous size, and is deeply 

 constricted as it passes through the septa. These constrictions 

 of the pouched intestine (figs. 14, 16) are not merely 

 caused by the septa, as in the sacculated region, but are due 

 to a series of ten pairs of short and wide-mouthed pouches or 

 caeca from the axial lumen of the intestine. There is a thicken- 

 ing (? glandular) along the vertical wall between two consecu- 

 tive caeca (fig. 16, c). This pouched region extends through 

 somites xvi to xxv. 



Behind the last pouch is a rather deeper constriction, after 

 1 ' Proc. Zool. Soc' 



