128 MR. W. E. HOYLE ON THE [Mar. .5, 



enclosed by the hooded portion of the pen, and with the anterior 

 end attached laterally to the posterior end of the csecal lobe of the 

 stomach. The prostate gland, vesiculae seminales, and spermato- 

 phore-sac are small ; the efferent duct is long and slender, ex- 

 tending forward over and beyond the base of the left gill." 



XI. The Funnel-Organ. 



This apparatus has been the subject of one or two communications 

 within the last few months, and hence it seemed desirable to make 

 what contributions to the subject were possible from the material at 

 hand. Its history may be dismissed in a few words, since Dr. Brock 

 has recently gone into tl)is matter somewhat fully \ It seems to 

 have been first observed by Heinrich Miiller^, who observed it in a 

 large number of species during a sojourn at Messina in 1852. He 

 describes the macroscopic appearance and gives some account of the 

 minute structure. It consists of a median and two lateral pads. 

 " Their surface," he says, " is made up entirt-ly of spindle-shaped 



corpuscles They present great similarity to the nettle-organs 



of other animals, but are devoid of a filament . . . They are deve- 

 loped in tlie interior of cells, in which they are often twisted and 

 coiled in various ways." No suggestion regarding their function is 

 here propounded, 



Franz Boll ^, in his classic " Vergleichende Histiologie des Mol- 

 luskentypus," devotes a page to the consideration of the topic. He 

 confirms Miiller's account, and points out in addition that the fusi- 

 form corpuscles (which he figures) become surrounded by an 

 excretory vesicle (" Secretbliischen "). He compares them with the 

 rod-like bodies found in the epidermis of the Turbellaria, but makes 

 no suggestion as to their proper function. 



In 18/7 Bohretzky *, in his finely illustrated work on the develop- 

 ment of the Cephalopoda, figured sections of the organ in the embryos 

 oiLoligo, and referred to it as a " thickening of the epidermis (? rudi- 

 ment of the funnel-organ)." 



In 1881 Prof. A. E. Verrill ° described a very highly developed 

 form of this apparatus in the cases of Taonius pavo and T. hyperboreus. 

 Shortly afterwards I was able to show that a similar structure is 

 present in all the species of that genus ^, and, being at that time 

 ignorant of the previous accounts of it, proposed to give it the name 

 of " Verrill's Organ." In the light of our present knowledge it 

 seems inappropriate to continue the use of this name, and perhaps the 

 proper course to pursue would be to make use of the name funnel- 

 organ (" Trichterorgan "), which occurs in the pages of the earliest 

 writers upon it. 



1 Nachrichten Gottingen, No. 17, 1S88, 3 pp. 



2 Zeifschr. f. wiss. Zool. iv. p. 339 (18o3). 



3 Ai-ch. mikr. Anat. v. Suppl. p. 97 (18(;9). 



* Op. cit. figs. 62, .55, 57, 74, and especially 83. 

 " Cephalopods of if.E. America, II.," Trans. Connect. Acad. v. pp. 413, 

 432, pi. It. figs. 2 (Z, 4 a. 



Lolic/opsis and other genera," Proe. Koy. Phys. See. Edinb. viii. 1885. 



