OLIGOCHATA OF TROPICAL EASTERN AFRICA. 261 
body.” I agree with Michaelsen in considering this structure as 
the reduced equivalent of the cesophageal diverticulum, which, 
if it has any function at all, must perform some office in relation 
to the blood. In this connection, also, I may refer to my own 
description of an analogous organ in the fresh-water Oligo- 
chete Phreodrilus. In that worm there are a pair of 
perienteric blood-vessels of larger size than the rest which 
contain in their interior masses of cells. These, too, may be 
the last stage in the conversion of an alimentary gland into a 
“blood gland.” Of a different nature are probably the vas- 
cular tufts which arise from the dorsal vessel in many Lum- 
briculide; though here, too, the error of Grube in terming 
these vascular ceca diverticula of the intestine is not unsug- 
gestive. Finally there are the “blood glands” of Peri- 
cheeta, which I have described in a recent volume of this 
Journal. These are hardly referable to cesophageal diver- 
ticula which have lost their connection with the gut. Their 
existence is interesting as showing the possibility that in the 
Annelids we have a group of glands very suggestive of the 
spleen, supra-renal bodies, and perhaps some other of the 
“ ductless glands”? of the Vertebrata which are not all trace- 
able toa common origin. Mr. Weldon has shown how the 
supra-renal body derived from the renal epithelium has lost its 
renal function and become converted to the interests of the 
vascular system. His description and figures of blood-clots 
lying in the lumen of the tubes is of particular interest to me 
in connection with the structures illustrated in fig. 15 of the 
present paper; but in making this comparison, it would be 
necessary to assume that the cells which I have regarded as 
peritoneal were in reality metamorphosed epithelium of the 
calciferous glands. 
The only other Eudrilid in which calciferous glands, after 
the pattern of those described in the present paper in Stuhl- 
manniaand Eudriloides, seems to be Megacheta tenuis. 
Michaelsen writes as follows about the matter:—‘‘In den . 
folgenden Segmenten erkennt man je ein Paar eigenartiger, 
Fettkorper-ahnliche Organe, die zu Seiten des Darmes liegen. 
