TRTCHOCEPHALUS DISPAR. 329 



of the last intestinal convolution of the narrow anterior part of 

 the body. Here the seminiferous organ bends round in a loop, 

 passes over the intestine towards the other side of the worm, and 

 then runs downwards for a considerable space, with its margins 

 undulated, and at its broadest places is about twice as thick as the 

 intestine, or about 0*4 mill. Afterwards, at the same turn in 

 which the intestine of the male was described as becoming nar- 

 rower, this seminiferous organ contracts into a very short, narrow, 

 straight tube, which opens into the dilated, muscular cloaca, 

 with tolerably thick uniform walls, close to the portion of the 

 intestine already referred to, and is also closed with a valve at 

 this point. This discharging canal of the testis, or funiculus 

 spermaticus, appears to be the same part which Wedl figures as 

 the cascum-like commencement of the testis. As the walls are 

 thicker here, and therefore the interior of the canal, when empty, 

 must be distinguished more clearly, and by its paler colour, it is 

 easily explained how Wedl was deluded into supposing that these 

 pale lines were the efferent ducts of the caecal testicle, whilst they 

 are nothing but the simple lumen of the anterior extremity of the 

 long testis, which opens by an efferent duct, overlooked by Wedl, 

 into the tubular sac serving as a common efferent canal for the 

 excrement and semen. The seminal elements themselves are 

 quite correctly described by Wedl, and consist of a granular 

 mass provided with light, round bodies (the ringed spermatozoa, 

 or, more correctly, the seminal globules of the nematode worms) ; 

 they may be very distinctly traced into the sac just described as 

 serving in common for the cloaca and sexual apparatus. About 

 at the same level where this repeatedly mentioned, thick-walled 

 cloacal tube commences with a knobbed dilatation, or a little more 

 anteriorly, originate, on the inner side of the wall, two band-like, 

 elastic stripes or bands, which in a short time unite into a sort of 

 light case or tube, which receives the penis in its interior (the 

 retractile sheath of the penis). The penis itself is simple, en- 

 larged in the form of a funnel at its root, becoming constantly 

 more and more pointed towards its free extremity, where it ter- 

 minates in a bluntly rounded point, like the end of a hollow 

 sound, and it is hollowed out throughout its course in 

 the same way. The sheath of the penis just described opens 

 into the lowest third of the cloaca, so often referred to, by 

 penetrating through that wall of the cloaca which is turned 

 towards the side of the worm designated as the inner side, 



