820 CLASS XIIT. 



wanting in Octopus, are present in females, without any connexion 

 with the oviduct, and probably secrete an external covering, or an 

 adhesive substance, by which the eggs are attached to each other. 

 The testis in the male agrees for the most part with the ovary in 

 external form and in situation. It presents a sac in which a bundle 

 of glandular tubes that secrete the seed is found. The efferent duct 

 is narrow and very tortuous, and afterwards passes into a wider 

 canal with internal folds, into which also an elongated gland 

 (prostata ?) situated laterally effuses its secretion. This canal termi- 

 nates in a muscular purse with thin walls, in which lie whitish cy- 

 lindrical bodies, about half an inch, and sometimes much more in 

 length, and which move when they are moistened long after the 

 death of the animal : which motion NEEDHAM has fully described 1 . 



NEEDHAM compares these singular little machines, as he names the 

 organs, with the Spermatozoa of other animals, from which however they 

 differ in their size and their composite structure. This is not exactly the 

 same in the various genera, yet it agrees in the chief point that in the 

 cylindrical body an elongated sac with thin walls and filled with a white 

 fluid (sperma) is situated, and extends to one of its extremities, whilst at 

 the other end there is a filament, turned spirally, and contained in a long 

 thin tube, which, after a pear-shaped expansion, is attached by a short 

 pedicle to the elongated sac at the other extremity. On contact with water 

 the cylindrical body is opened, probably by endosmose, and this occasions 

 the expulsion of the spiral organ which draws out with it the attached sac. 

 Within the sac is contained a white sperma with cylindrical spermatozoa 

 terminating in a long fine filament. The Needhamian bodies are thus not 

 spermatozoa, but they contain spermatozoa; they are seed-machines, capsulce 

 seminis or spermatophores, as MILNE EDWAKDS has named them 2 . 



The male Cephalopods have a short, very thick, conical and per- 

 forate penis, which is situated at the side of the rectum at the same 

 part where the extremity of the oviduct lies in the females attached 



1 'Nouvelles decouvertes faites avec le Microscope, par T. NEEDHAM, traduites de 

 VAnglois. Leide, 1747, 8vo, pp. 44 67. London, 1745. Hence, also, these organs 

 are named Needhamian bodies, although they had been previously observed by 

 SWAMMERDAM (Bijbel der Nat. Tab. LII. figs. 6, 7). Some regard these little cylinders 

 as real animals ; see G. C. CARUS Needhamia expulsoria sepice officinalis, beschreiben 

 und abgebildet; Nov. Act. Acad. Cces. Leop. Carol, xxix. PL I. 1839. 



2 Compare A. KROHN, FRORIEP'S Neue Notizen, xn. Bd. 17 23, October, 1839, 

 PHILIPPI in MUELLER'S Arckiv, 1839, 310312, Taf. xv. ; PETERS ibid. 98100, 

 and MILNE EDWARDS Ann. des Sc. natur., 2e Se"rie, xvm. 1842, pp. 321 347, with 

 many figures. In a well-preserved specimen of a male Nautilus I found the whole 

 bursa Needhami (vesicula seminalis) filled by a single cylindrical, long, and tortuous 

 canal, within which was a fine spiral filament. 



