228 FRANK E. BEDDARD. 
solid strand joins the spermatotheca. Traced in the opposite 
direction it is seen to gradually develop a lumen, which gets 
wider and wider until it expands into a trumpet-shaped orifice 
which opens into the 13th segment. It seems in fact to be 
clear that this tube, which ultimately forms the communica- 
tion between the ovary egg-sac and spermatotheca, is merely 
a backward growth of the septum separating Segments 
xiui/xtv. The oviducal funnel lies just above the mouth of 
this diverticulum of the septum, and is placed within the 
mouth of the egg-sac. The oviduct itself, shortly after it 
expands to form the funnel, projects into the interior of the 
septal sac; it does not open into it, but is enclosed by the 
walls of the said sac. At this stage the ovary is quite free, and 
is attached in the usual position to the anterior septum of the 
13th segment. 
The development of the corresponding regions of the female 
generative apparatus has been studied by myself in Libyo- 
drilus violaceus; I was able to show that nearly the whole 
of the large spermatothecal sac originated from the ccelom, 
the septa being modified to form its walls; at most the 
merest trace of an invaginated part was to be found at the 
external orifice. I suggested that the large spermatothecal 
sacs of Eudrilus and Teleudrilus were also probably to be 
regarded as the homologues of the unpaired sac of Libyo- 
drilus. The facts that I make known in the present paper 
do not lead me to adhere to that opinion. For in Pareu- 
drilus it seems to be more than probable that the whole of 
the spermatothecal sac is an invagination, and that the egg- 
conducting apparatus only is of mesoblastic origin, and has a 
cavity which is an enclosed section of the celom. The nature 
of the spermatothecal sacs of the Eudrilide was first proved 
by myself to be different from that of other earthworms in the 
paper upon Libyodrilus referred to; at least it was ren- 
dered exceedingly probable that the conditions obtaining in 
Libyodrilus were not confined to that genus, but were cha- 
racteristic of the whole gronp. Rosa, however, independently 
in point of observation, but subsequently to myself in date of 
