NEOMENIA VERRILLI. 213 



sjonmetrically placed on each side of the mid hne. From sections, which 

 pass longitudinally through these structures, it is very difficult to gain a clear 

 idea of their character, and, as will be seen, it is equally trying to ascribe to 

 them a definite function. The epithelial lining appears to be fashioned into a 

 large number of heavy folds (Plate 3, fig. 3), and occasionally where the walls 

 are bare they appear golden yellow in color after treatment with haematoxyUn. 

 This seemingly is due to large quantities of secretion, though even with high 

 magnification cell boundaries and nuclei are invisible. Generally speaking 

 the Uning epithelium affords attachment for myriads of spermatozoa, which, 

 with great regularity of arrangement, seem to be imbedded in the cells them- 

 selves, while the tails extend outwardly and together with the above mentioned 

 secretion practically fill the lumen of the organ. Even in portions of the vagina 

 and the expansions of the cloacal wall, into which the penial spines emerge, 

 sperms find attachment to the lining epithelium though their numbers per unit 

 area are considerably less than in the vesicles themselves. It may be men- 

 tioned that the golden yellow secretion occurs at intervals throughout the 

 vagina and lateral to it, having apparently passed into these locations from the 

 sac-like expansions or vesicles. 



Regularity of arrangement of spermatozoa within a vesicle is usually 

 considered to be an indication that the organ in question functions as a seminal 

 receptacle, while the reverse condition indicates that the structure plays the 

 role of a seminal vesicle. If such a line of argument be followed in the present 

 instance then these pouches are seminal receptacles. It is a very unusual 

 thing, unique in fact, to find organs such as these in such a situation, and it 

 is the more difficult to look upon them as receptacles since a pair of these last 

 named organs occurs in the usual position at the junction of the dorsal and 

 ventral Umbs of the coelomoducts. It is possible that they function as such 

 temporarily, and that the sperms take up their final position in the usual recep- 

 tacles, but nothing short of a series of specimens in different stages of sexual 

 maturity will indicate the true solution of the problem. 



Wiren (1892) has described a vesicular attachment, filled with sperms, 

 of the dorsal hmbs of the coelomoducts in the neighborhood of the pericardial 

 openings in Neomenia carinata. In sections they hold the same general position 

 that the sperm sacs do in the present species, but in our specimen the dorsal 

 limbs are unmutilated, and a careful examination of them throughout their 

 entire length fails to disclose any spermatozoa, much less any noticeable enlarge- 

 ment. 



