550 REVIEW. 



catiou etonuante." The difference is so great that I hardly 

 know how to criticise M. Bolsius' description. I assume that 

 we are dealing with the same leech, though I certainly took 

 no pains to verify the species with which I worked. My 

 specimens were purchased as medicinal leeches from Messrs. 

 Henry Potter and Sons, of London, who import large numbers 

 of leeches for the London market. I distinguished between 

 at least two varieties, but noted only the differences in the 

 matter of coloration.^ 



Since receiving M. Bolsius' most recent memoir I have 

 examined a number of fresh nephridia from the medicinal 

 leech in use here, and a number of Clepsine, embryonic and 

 adult ; and have worked over all my old preparations, includ- 

 ing a series of sections through the region of a nephridium in 

 H. medicinalis, which I had not previously used for this 

 purpose. The greater number of these sections (sixty-nine) I 

 have drawn with a camera, and have reconstructed the nephri- 

 dium from the drawings. The other sections of the series 

 (thirty-nine in number) pass only through portions of the 

 vesicle, testis, lobe, and funnel. I have also treated in the 

 same way a series of fifty-one sections through a Nephelis in 

 the region of a nephridium. 



To speak for the present of Hirudo only, I am convinced 

 that the results given in my last paper were, except in a few 

 matters of detail, correct. I am not now concerned with the 

 question as to how far those results were based upon my own 

 researches, and how much I owed to Leydig, Lankester, 

 Schultze, Lang, and others. I merely refer to my own paper, 

 since I was the author who immediately preceded M. Bolsius 

 in dealing with this subject. I will, however, point out in 

 this connection that I have laid no claim to be the dis- 



1 I do not suppose that there is any doubt whatever about our having used 

 the same leech. I just refer to the matter because the leech in use in the 

 hospital here (Madras) is undoubtedly a different leech. It is much larger, 

 there are considerable differences in the structure of the genital organs, and 

 the nephridia are different, and in a most interesting condition: the funnel, 

 and indeed the whole of the " testis lobe," is absent. The latter is represented 

 by a small piece which curls round on the edge of tiie "apical lobe." 



