94 MR. F. E. BEDDARD ON THE [June 3, 



developed ova. It appears to me that this dichogamy, resulting 

 in the earlier maturation of the female gonad, has a relation with 

 the complicated condition of the efferent apparatus. I have on 

 former occasions dwelt upon the difficulty of the transit of the 

 eggs into the egg- sac of the xivth sagment, and used that 

 difficulty as an argument in favour of regarding the egg-sac as 

 really representing a second ovaiy which has become involved by 

 the sac. This ^-iew I abandon so far as concerns Eudrilus ; for 

 in the young stages, when the egg-sac is empty of eggs, there is 

 no trace of any ovary in the segment which contains it. In the 

 adult worm, the tract of oviduct which lies between the egg-sac 

 and the junction of the oviduct with the branch that opens into 

 the egg-conducting apparatus is long and much convoluted. 

 This is well shown in Eisen's figure referred to. 



In the immature worm the transit would be compara,tively 

 short and not hampered, moreover, by any ciliary action. This 

 consideration, coupled with the early development of the female 

 sexual cells, appears to me to have some significance. The ovaries 

 in the most immature worm which I have examined were enclosed 

 in a sac arising from the septum lying between the xiith and 

 xiiith segments. This sac was apparently completely closed. In 

 slightly more mature stages the sac of one side was prolonged 

 into the short tube which I, Dr. Horst, and Dr. Eisen have 

 described in the adult worm. I ascertained that this egg-tube 

 opened into the spermathecal sac ; but, in addition to this, the 

 tube gave oft" a bi-anch which crossed the body- cavity above 

 the ventral blood-vessel, and opened into the spermathecal sac of 

 the opposite side of the body. The ovary of that side was 

 enclosed in the usual sac, which was not j)rolonged into an egg- 

 tube. This state of affairs, whether normal in the species, or 

 only occasionally to be met with, recalls the more usual character- 

 istic of the Eiidrilidi^. In other genera, for example in Helio- 

 clrilus^, the same communication between the ovary and both 

 spermathecal sacs occurs by a slender tube crossing over the 

 nervous system and ventral blood-vessel. 



(2) S23erm-clucts. 



The anatomy of the male efferent organs in the adult Eudrilus 

 has been also fully described by the authors quoted above. But 

 here, again, nothing up to the present time is known of the 

 condition of the various parts of this system in the immature 

 worm. I find that the spermiducal glands are in the form of a 

 single tube, with no division of the lumen such as exists in the 

 glandular tube of the sexually mature individual. It seems, 

 therefore, that the double spermiducal gland of the adult is not 

 formed by the fusion of two distinct tubes, but that the division 

 is secondary. There is naturally no terminal sac into which this 



' Quart. Jouni. Micr. Sci. xxxii. (n. s.) pi. xix. fig. 41. 



