606 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1683. 



having shot out, or extended its body, which is with a wreathing, it takes hold 

 by its small feet, and so contracts the hinder part of its body. 



I observed also that dividing this part, there issued out a copious ichor; which 

 is naturally discharged by some pores or small vents in the skin ; which in the 

 earth-worm is of great use, by rendering the surface of the body slippery, that 

 so it might the easier glide into the earth. And in these other worms of the 

 intestines this humor, as in leeches, makes a covering to the body, which is often 

 cast off, and observed as a mucus, in the stools of those troubled with them. 



In these teretes of animal bodies I never observed those transverse diaphragms 

 which are so numerous in earth-worms, and do intersect or rather so deeply de- 

 press the intestine. But the cavity chiefly seems to be filled with the genital 

 parts, which I shall now describe: only first remarking, that the passage from 

 the mouth was somewhat straightened for a short space, and was distinguished 

 as in the figure, from the following ductus; which was a straight intestine, con- 

 tinued to the end of the body, without any winding or other distinction of a 

 stomach that I could observe. 



As to the genital parts of the male, I could here observe a penis, a vesicula 

 seminalis, and a testis : in the female a pudendum, vagina uteri, cornua uteri, 

 and spermatic vessels. The penis in the male was placed at the tail, or opposite 

 extreme to the head ; and seemed to be able to exert itself almost the length of 

 a barley corn, or proportionably to the length of the vagina in the female. At 

 the root of the penis was inserted the neck of the vesicula seminalis, which 

 gradually grew larger as it ascended in the body, and usually reached almost 

 half way. It was filled and turgid with a milky juice; which it received from 

 a slender vessel of the same colour inserted into it. Which after one turning, 

 was afterwards very much convoluted ; and so forms that body I call the testis. 

 Although this part be so loosely contexed, as even to the naked eye it appears 

 but as a continued vessel, and may easily be unravelled its whole length, which 

 I measured above a yard: yet I make no difficulty of giving it the name of a 

 testis; since it is now sufficiently known, that the testes in more compleat 

 animals are only a congeries of vessels. And a rat, besides this worm, is not 

 the only subject wherein I have found them thus loose and easily separable. 



In the female worm, almost about the middle of the body, but more towards 

 the head, I observed an orifice or pudendum, which led into the vagina uteri; 

 which soon divided into the two cornua which were large, and remarkable. 

 For descending something winding towards the tail, they were then reflected 

 again, and did each of them terminate in slender vessels, white, as they were, 

 but much smaller; and lay in several convolutions and windings among them. 

 These I take for spermatic vessels. Having taken those vessels, with the cornua 



