NOTES ON OLIGOCHATES. ba 
statements has been included in the excellent monograph Mr. 
Beddard has just published (2), it seems all the more important 
that it should be criticised before it becomes generally 
accepted. 
Let us now examine the structure of the nephridium in En- 
chytrzus hortensis as seen in the living animal. The organ 
(fig. 2) consists of an oval main body, flattened from side to 
side, and narrowing in front to a neck, which piercing the 
septum ends in an open funnel (fig. 2, neph. st.). Behind the 
nephridium passes into a lobe leading to the body-wall. The 
protoplasm of the nephridial cells, whose boundaries I have 
been unable to distinguish, is very granular, especially in the 
anterior region, which is frequently of a brownish tinge. The 
funnel (figs. 8—5) has a protruding upper lip (up. J.) and 
a truncated lower lip (/./.). At the extremity and along the 
edges of the upper lip are set numerous very long extremely 
fine waving cilia (ezt. cil., figs. 4 and 5), while from the inner 
surface springs a large bunch of powerful undulating cilia (fl.). 
As far as I have been able to determine, cilia are not present 
on the lower lip; but rising from its middle region is a peculiar 
sharp protoplasmic process (m. p., figs. 4 and 5), sometimes 
branched and ragged. 
Already in Nereis (7) and Vermiculus (8) I have drawn 
attention to the two kinds of cilia attached to the lip of the 
nephrostome, which indeed have not escaped the notice of 
previous authors, but the exact disposition and differences 
of which have not heen sufficiently insisted upon. Whilst the 
inner beat rapidly, simultaneously, and rhythmically, forming 
an undulating bunch! or “ flame,” which, no doubt, propels 
liquid down the lumen of the canal; the long external cilia, 
on the other hand, do not beat in unison: each cilium seems 
to move independently with trembling motion, sweeping down 
towards the protruding process of the lower lip. These cilia 
seem rather to guard the mouth of the funnel and select 
1 The seat of the motion seems to be at the base of the cilia, the wave 
passing along them as an undulation passes along a cord shaken at one ex- 
tremity. 
