STUDIES ON EARTHWORMS. 97 



shown in situ in fig. 33 and enlarged in figs. 35 and 36. 

 Whether these structures are " salivary glands " and open into 

 the alimentary canal I am unable to say. I could not find any 

 opening though they were embedded in the muscular wall of 

 the pharynx, nor on the other hand could I find any external 

 opening as the alimentary tract had been removed from the 

 body before I received it. Each of these structures is 

 made up of a much branched tubule, each branch ending 

 in a tuft of elongated processes, each of which contains a 

 lumen (fig. 35). The lumen bends round on itself at the 

 apex of the process (fig. 36), and probably is continuous up 

 and down each of the processes ; this lumen is intracellular 

 and in transverse section (fig. 37) has an appearance quite 

 similar to that of a nephridium. There is a very abundant 

 vascular supply to these structures and the capillary loops have 

 numerous dilatations on their course, as in the capillaries on 

 the nephridium of Lumbricus, but here they are larger and 

 much more numerous ; these dilatations are filled with a granu- 

 lar material (figs. 36, 37) which is probably due to the remains 

 of the blood-corpuscles, I think that there is no doubt that 

 these structures, though apparently in connection with the 

 alimentary canal, are really modified nephridia; even if they 

 do open into the alimentary canal we have the same thing 

 occurring in Ac. multiporus. The nephridia in the rest of 

 the body are extremely minute, and this may have some relation 

 to the great development of these anterior ones. Perrier remarks 

 on the great development of the glandular appendages of the 

 alimentary canal ofPerichseta Houlleti^ and the small 

 development of the nephridia, and suggests that these appen- 

 dages may take on an excretory function, the products being 

 used for digestive purposes. 



The Genital System. — Of the male organs I could find 

 neither testes, nor seminal reservoirs, nor ciliated rosettes, nor 

 sperm-ducts; but in each of the somites xvi and xviii is a pair 

 of whitish convoluted tubes, having the shape and appearance 

 of the " prostates'' of Acanthodrilus (fig. 34, </, of'). Each 

 ' ' Nouv. Arch.,' &c., viii. 



VOL. XXVII, PAKT 1. NEW SER. G 



