CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ANATOMY OF EARTHWORMS. 467 
seems to me to be possible that the spermathece have 
disappeared and the diverticula remained to discharge 
their functions. The structure of these small pouches, their 
large number per somite, and their variability in number, are 
facts which are quite in accord with such a view. 
Criodrilus is a form which is difficult to fit in with this 
hypothesis, but the total absence of any trace of spermathece 
at all is sufficiently puzzling without going any further.' 
Pericheta intermedia, n. sp. 
The genus Pericheta, of which there are a larger number 
of species known than of any other genus, forms one of the best- 
marked types among Earthworms; so much so, indeed, that its 
affinities with other genera are by no means clear. I have 
recently, however, described in this Journal (8) a remarkable 
type—Deinodrilus—which is to some extent a connecting 
link between Pericheta and Acanthodrilus, though it is 
perhaps, on the whole, nearer to the latter. 
I have now to describe a species, like Deinodrilus, from 
New Zealand, which, although it must certainly be placed in 
the genus Pericheta, shows affinities to Acanthodrilus. 
I have given this worm the specific name of “intermedia,” 
in order to indicate its intermediate characters, but I am not 
quite certain as to its distinctness from an Australian form 
recently described by Mr. Fletcher as Pericheta Bakeri (19), 
with which it appears to agree in some structural peculiarities. 
In Mr. Fletcher’s paper, which is apparently preliminary to a 
more exhaustive account of the anatomy of Australian Earth- 
worms, no special stress is laid upon the more important 
characters of P. Bakeri, in which it seems to resemble the 
present species, and to differ markedly from other Perichete. 
1 The absence of capsulogenous glands in some Lumbriculide is perhaps to 
be accounted for, as is their absence in Tubifex, i.e. by the fact that the 
cocoon contains noalbumen. Hormogaster, Urocheta, Thamnodrilus, 
and some other genera have no capsulogenous glands and no diverticula. But 
this is only negative evidence, and these genera are clearly not so well known 
as Pericheta and Acanthodrilus. 
