11 
Royal Microscopical Society. 
matters, whether animal or vegetable, frequently pass through the 
maxillae (Z), suffering hut little disintegration from their action when 
they return again and again into this chamber, the walls of which 
are lined with follicles, that, notwithstanding the position this 
chamber occupies in relation with the jaws, I assume to be gastric 
follicles, for the stomach (/) which succeeds it in this Family con- 
sists of a single chamber, whose sides are thickened by large turgid 
cells that secrete the bile. The stomach discharges its faecal contents 
at once into the intestine ( g), wherein they become formed by the 
action of its cilia into crude pellets, that are discharged by a short 
rectum ( h ) to the anus (i), and the anus in this Family is situated 
on the neural side, the same as with the Polyzoa, and is placed at 
the lowest extremity of the body, and not, as Dr. Collins represents 
it, on the haemal side at the neck of his pseudo-new species : he has 
simply mistaken the integument of the ovarium, which is placed on 
the side opposite to that occupied by the anus, and it is frequently 
found to be devoid of ovarian nuclei. The rectum and anus are 
always placed on the neural side in this Family, and at the lowest 
extremity of the body. 
In the second Family the Alimentary System differs essen- 
tially from the other, for the provender which is first brought by 
the persistent action of the trochal cilia under the influence of the 
ciliated cingulum, whose action creates two currents that act in 
opposite directions, the one from the right and the other from the 
left, by which the heterogeneous mass of particles is conveyed to 
the lingula (c), that is here situated on the opposite, the haemal 
side, where, by the influence of this organ, the particles so involved 
are segregated and severally disposed both for alimentary and fabri- 
cating purposes ; when those selected for aliment pass at once by a 
ciliated pharynx (k) to the maxillae (Z), which organ in this 
Family is provided with a parotid gland (m), situated in close 
proximity therewith, and the maxillae produce a much more com- 
plete degree of mastication than that organ in the first Family. 
In Melicertadje it occupies a bulbous chamber, which is sepa- 
rated from the stomach (/) by a cardia ( n ), and the stomach 
virtually consists of three chambers, for wherever digestion is con- 
cerned, certain ingredients are necessary for its due performance ; — 
gastric, biliary, and pancreatic fluids — which in the vertebrates are 
secreted from a separate set of organs that communicate with the 
alimentary canal by ducts ; but with the Eotifera the alimentary 
canal consists of a single channel divided into three compart- 
ments, that are each organized to secrete these several fluids, so 
that in Melicerta the first chamber is the stomach proper (/), 
whose sides are lined with gastric follicles, that convert the masti- 
cated food into chyle; the second (o) being the biliary chamber 
acting in the capacity of a liver ; and the third (p) a pancreatic 
