454. FRANK E. BEDDARD. 
the first place it is a straight tube; secondly, it is completely 
continuous with the sac investing the ovary; there is no con- 
spicuous break in the epithelium to mark the position of what 
might be regarded as the funnel; thirdly, the epithelium lining 
the oviduct is formed of inconspicuous cubical cells which are 
not ciliated. The oviducts of segment xiv, on the other hand, 
form a pair of much-coiled tubes, which are not so completely 
continuous with the perigonadial sac; the columnar ciliated 
cells lining the oviduct end abruptly in its interior and thus 
form a distinct funnel. 
The structural differences between the two pairs of oviducts 
which have thus been briefly enumerated appear to be perfectly 
constant. I have suggested in an earlier paper (2) that these 
differences may be due to the immature condition of the oviducts 
and the perigonadial sac of segment x11. Since I have disco- 
vered mature ova in the ovaries of segment x111 ] am no longer 
disposed to believe that this is the case, but I now think that the 
differences described above are real differences. They appear 
to indicate a commencing disappearance in the oviduct of seg- 
ment x11. In Teleudrilus this pair of oviducts has com- 
pletely vanished, and only the ovarian sacs remain ; these have 
come to be connected with the ovarian sacs of segment xiv. This 
connection may perhaps account for the disappearance of the 
ovaries of the fourteenth segment, if they are really not 
represented in Teleudrilus; but Rosa’s figures do not seem 
to me perfectly satisfactory upon this point. In most Harth- 
worms all trace of the perigonadial sinus round the ovary has 
vanished, but in Lumbricus—as Rosa points out, quoting 
Hering—the ovary is prolonged into a delicate tube which may 
be a last remnant of this perigonadial sac. The receptaculum 
ovorum in these Earthworms often retains a partial connection 
with the oviduct in such forms as Acanthodrilus georgi- 
anus and A. scioanus (Rosa, 35) this connection is lost, 
and in many Earthworms the receptaculum itself is no longer 
to be found. 
This series of changes in the female reproductive organs in 
a number of types is not, of course, meant to express my views 
