A NEW SPECIES OF MONILIGASTER FROM INDIA. 367 



in Perichaeta, LumbricuSj and other genera, but it is 

 as certainly not entirely absent. 



Beddard has laid great stress on the simplicity of the sperm- 

 sac in associating Moniligaster with the Microdrili or 

 '^Limicoline section^' of the Oligochseta. Here, then, we have 

 still another apparent distinctive character between " aquatic" 

 and " terrestrial" Oligochseta breaking down, and that within 

 the limits of one and the same genus ; and it is gradually 

 becoming more and more impossible to characterise differen- 

 tially the two groups, for in fact they verge into one another 

 at almost every point. 



The two sperm-sacs are entirely independent of one another. 

 Each contains a testis and spermiducal funnel. 



The testis (fig. 5) is digitate and attached to the hinder 

 wall of the sac, i. e. to the Septum ix/x. The funnel — we 

 cannot call it a " rosette" — of the sperm-duct is a simple, wide, 

 ciliated tract of the hinder wall of the sac (fig. 5). The cells 

 are tall, and thus readily distinguishable from the flattened 

 cells which elsewhere form the wall around it. 



This flat funnel can be seen through the thin wall on dis- 

 section, and the sperm-ducts can be seen passing away from 

 it (fig. 4). 



As to the point of attachment of the testis, I find that it is 

 independent of the funnel. Rosa figures it, both for 

 Moniligaster Beddardii and for Desmogaster, attached 

 to the funnel near to its centre. Beddard also in one figure 

 (fig. 8) represents the testis arising from the funnel, whilst in 

 fig. 9 he shows it at its side. In my own sections the testis 

 lies nearer the middle line of the body than the funnel, so 

 that the two structures are not at their best in any one given 

 section. Perhaps Rosa^s diagram is in this point merely dia- 

 grammatic. 



The sperm-duct is very delicate and very greatly con- 

 voluted (fig. 4), much more so than is indicated by either Bed- 

 dard's or Rosa's figures; it more nearly approaches the con- 

 dition represented by Perrier (pi. iv, figs. 81, 83), though this 

 zoologist appears to have been disinclined to regard the 



