214 Mr A. E. Shipley, On the Existence of Communications [May 7, 
The points to which I particularly directed my observation fall 
under three heads. 
Firstly: Do the internal funnels really open, or end blindly, 
and in what spaces do their internal ends lie? For instance, are 
there any such sacs as Sedgwick has described enclosing the 
funnels of the nephridia of Peripatus? 
Secondly: the communication between the true blood spaces 
and the sinuses, the nature of the fluid found in these spaces, and 
the circulation of the blood. 
Thirdly: the embryological origin of the sinuses. With re- 
gard to this last I have been unable to make any investigation, 
but a certain amount of information on this subject is found in the 
writings of Nusbaum, Whitmann, and others. 
With regard firstly to the nephridial funnels of Clepsine, I can 
fully confirm Bourne’s statements. The funnel is usually com- 
posed of two cells, but in some cases I have seen three nuclei 
indicating the presence of three cells in the funnel; these surround 
a lumen; on one side this lumen is continuous with the sinus, and 
on the other hand with a sac. The lumen of the funnel is lined 
with long cilia. Bourne’s figure of this structure is rather dia- 
grammatic; the lumen of the funnel is occluded ; but he definitely 
states that it opens, and in some of my preparations the coagulated 
mass of fiuid in the sinus is joined to a similar coagulum in the 
sac mentioned above, by a strand of coagulated matter which in 
all respects resembles blood. The sac is usually full of coagulated 
fluid with small corpuscles scattered in it. In one nephridium 
there were two funnels, each opening into the sac; and again, 
I once saw a buneh of three or four funnels connected with the 
single sac of a nephridium. 
The internal end of the nephridium of Hirudo does not open, 
but is surmounted by a number of cells, each with a depression. 
The fact that it does not open is regarded by Bourne as due to 
degeneration. This swollen end lies in a space which contains red 
blood, and there is no sac full of coagulated blood and corpuscles 
as in Clepsine. 
Nephelis, however, is provided with nephridial funnels which 
do open on the one hand into the space in which their internal 
ends are situated, and on the other into a sac similar to that 
found in Clepsine, which contains both coagulum and corpuscles. 
With regard to the spaces in which the funnels le, there seems 
to me to be no doubt that Bourne’s description is correct. In 
Clepsine, the funnels le in pairs, in the ventral sinus, with the 
ventral vessel and nerve cord between them. No trace of any 
special sac, such as is found in Peripatus, is present. 
In Nephelis the funnels open into a special enlargement of the 
botryoidal tissue, but there is no reason to regard this as anything 
