420 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



closed by it. In Allolobophora the funnel consists of two elongated lips, 

 which, lie against one another and have ciliated epithelium on their 

 inner surface. The canals from the funnels do not unite till they 

 reach the fourteenth segment. Tho funnels may be regarded as thicken- 

 ings of tho peritoneum, and the vas deferens is at first a solid cord of 

 cells, which in time becomes hollow. The oviducts are developed in 

 the same way ; the funnels are thickenings of the peritoneum at tho 

 side of the segmental funnel, and the receptacula are thickenings of the 

 peritoneum of the dissepiment. In their mode of origin, then, the 

 male seminal reservoirs and the receptacula ovorum present great simi- 

 larity, and may be homologous, but in their functions they are quite 

 different, so that the peculiarities of the receptacula must not be regarded 

 as a proof of tho non-testicular nature of the seminal vesicles. 



Lehmann is of opinion that the vasa defercntia and oviducts have no 

 genetic relations to the segmental organs. As, however, they have to 

 perform the same kind of function — the removal of material from tho 

 interior of the body — it may well happen that vasa deferentia may serve 

 as ducts for the excretory organs, and the excretory ducts carry away 

 generative products to the exterior. 



Structural Characters of Earthworms.*— Mr. F. E. Beddard de- 

 scribes a new genus of earthworms — Neodrilus monocystis — from a single 

 specimen which it is possible may be really an Acanthodrilus in which 

 the posterior pair of male generative pores, together with their glands, 

 have not yet been developed. A detailed account is given of TJrocliseta 

 sp. from Queensland, which is compared with U. coreihrurus, and 

 U. dubia. Perichseta neivcombei sp. n. is remarkable for the great 

 development of the genital papillae ; while agreeing in many points with 

 the two species — P. australis and P. coxii — lately described by Mr. 

 Fletcher, it differs in the presence of vesiculae seminales in all of the 

 segments from 9-12 inclusive. P. upuloensis sp. n. is, also, mainly 

 characterized by the number and arrangement of the genital papillae. 

 It would seem that the number and arrangement of these papillae afford 

 good characters for discriminating the different species of Perichseta, 

 although the number is apt to vary somewhat at different stages of 

 maturity. 



New Australian Earthworms.f — Mr. J. J. Fletcher gives descrip- 

 tions of ten new species of Australian earthworms, but he leaves the 

 consideration of morphological details for a future revision. All but 

 two belong to the common Australian type Perichseta, and one — P. cana- 

 liculata — is interesting as being intra-clitellian, while another — P. 

 wilsoniana — has most of its representatives post-clitellian, but one is 

 intra-clitellian ; these facts support the view of Mr. Beddard that Perrier's 

 division of intra- and post-clitellian groups is too artificial to be per- 

 manently retained. A new genus, Perissog aster, is established for a 

 form, P. excavata, which is characterized by the possession of three 

 gizzards, while it differs from the West Indian genus Trig aster of 

 Benham in the characters of its generative apparatus. One species is 

 referred provisionally to Cryptodrilus, and is called C. rubens. The other 

 new forms are Eudrilus (?) dubius, Perichseta exigua, and var. murray- 

 ana, P. monticola, P. stirlingi, P. raymondiana, P. hamiltoni, and 



* Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, 1886-7, pp. 156-76 (1 pi.), 

 t Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, ii. (1SS7) pp. 375-402. 



