STEUOTURE OF TWO NEW GENERA OP EARTHWORMS. 257 



supra-intestinal vessel does not, as it does in Eudrilus, become 

 double above each of the ventral oesophageal pouches. 



§ Generative Organs. 



(1) Female Organs. — As in most of the genera belonging 

 to the family Eudrilidse, there is a complicated system of 

 coelomic spaces developed in connection with the ovaries and 

 the other organs belonging to the reproductive system. 



The ovaries are paired, and in Segment 13. Each ovary is 

 enclosed in a sac which it almost completely fills ; a narrow 

 tube running dorsal to the nerve cord connects the ovarian 

 sacs of the two sides of the body ; there is further a communi- 

 cation between the ovarian sac and the egg-sac of its own 

 side, as in Teleudrilus and Hyperiodrilus : this communi- 

 cation is effected by a coelomic tube which is at first very 

 narrow; as it approaches the egg-sacs it becomes wider^ and 

 finally forms a somewhat oval sac enclosing the funnel of the 

 oviduct and communicating with the egg-sacs, into which the 

 oviducal funnel also opens. So far as I can make out from a 

 complete series of transverse sections the arrangement is, so 

 far, very like that which has been figured and described by 

 Rosa in Teleudrilus (10); but Heliodrilus apparently 

 difl'ers from Teleudrilus, and certainly agrees with Hyperio- 

 drilus in the communication between the right and left 

 ovarian sacs. I found it quite easy to trace the course of the 

 tube which connects the ovarian sac with the considerable 

 space surrounding the funnel of the oviduct ; but any doubt as 

 to the reality of this connection is removed in the present in- 

 stance by the occurrence of ova floating freely in the wide 

 space round the funnel ; for the most part these ova were to 

 be observed singly, each surrounded by a follicular layer of 

 flattened cells, of which the nuclei alone were conspicuous : in 

 a few cases the ova were also surrounded or partially surrounded 

 by groups of germinal cells, as a rule comparatively few in 

 number. The ova in the ovary, as well as those which I found 

 in the sinus surrounding the funnel of the oviduct, had a well- 

 developed vitelline membrane, but showed no traces of the 



