376 KARM NARAYAN BAHL 
Eleventh and Tenth Segments.—These two seg- 
ments contain no ‘hearts’, but each of them has a pair of 
commissural vessels connecting the supra-intestinal with the 
lateral oesophageal of each side. These vessels lie in the 
posterior parts of these segments near their posterior septa, 
and are partially covered by the latter. Unlike the * hearts ’ 
these ‘loops’ of the tenth and eleventh segments are thin- 
walled, their walls beg non-muscular, and they have no valves 
anywhere along their length. 
The blood, by means of these ‘loops ’, flows from the lateral- 
oesophageals into the supra-intestinals. The latter collect 
blood from the gizzard and oesophagus and also receive blood 
in these two segments directly from the lateral oesophageals. 
All this blood they carry into the ventral vessel through the 
‘hearts ’ in the twelfth and thirteenth segments. 
We may note here that the lateral oesophageals in Lum- . 
bricus pour their blood into the dorsal vessel in the tenth 
segment and into the large parietal in the twelfth. 
Ninth Segment.—lIn the ninth segment there is a pair 
of ‘lateral hearts’ connecting the dorsal with the ventral 
vessel. This pair of ‘hearts’ is generally asymmetrical. the 
left ‘ heart ’ being large and well developed as compared with 
the small thin-walled and ill-developed one of the right side, 
which, however, sends a branch to the oesophagus in this 
segment. The ‘heart’ on the left side has valves pointing 
downwards along the greater part of its length, and there is 
also a pair near the point of opening of the ‘heart’ into the 
ventral vessel. There are altogether four pairs of valves and 
their position and arrangement is illustrated in fig. 11 a. 
Bighth Segment.—lIn the eighth segment the dorsal 
vessel gives off a pair of large thick-walled branches which 
do not join the ventral vessel but on account of their contrac- 
tility are still called ‘hearts’; each of them presents a bulb- 
like dilatation at some distance from its origin and immediately 
forks into two (fig. 5), the posterior branch gomg to the septum 
and body-wall, and the anterior dividing and distributing 
blood over the wall of the gizzard in a large number of capil- 
