1902.] FEMALE ORGANS OF EUDKILUS. 95 



opens, nor any trace of the penis or of the cushion-like pad on to 

 which opens the duct of the " U-shaped tube." The latter, which 

 is distinctly composed of two tubes, opens after the two tubes 

 have united into the terminal section of the spermiducal gland 

 just before the opening of the latter on to the exterior. 



I may finally observe, with regard to the spermiducal glands, 

 that the duct of the nephridium opens in common with the duct 

 of that, gland, as is also the case with ffeliodrilus \ 



(3) Ne2)hriclia of Genital Segments. 



1 do not think that it has been pointed out that the nephridia 

 of Eudrilus are imperfect in the xith, xiith and xivth segments. 

 The nephridia of those segments have no funnel opening into the 

 segment in front. It is of course proverbially difficult to prove a 

 negative. But, in this case, the funnels when present are so 

 extremely conspicuous, that it is not easy to understand how they 

 can have been missed if really present in the segments where I 

 believe them to be deficient. Moreover, the funnel when present 

 is sufficiently large to appear in four, or even five consecutive 

 sections. In no instance — and I have carefully examined both 

 sides of the body of three examples — was there the faintest trace 

 of anything that could be put doAvn to even the degenerate i-udi- 

 ment of a funnel. The persistence or non-persistence of nephridial 

 funnels in those segments which contain the funnels of the gonad- 

 ducts has not been much enquired into ; so far, at least, as 

 concerns the terrestrial Oligochaeta.. In the majority of the 

 aquatic forms the entire nephridium of the segments concerned 

 vanishes on the appearance of the gonad-ducts. I published some 

 years since " several reasons for believing that in Octochcetus 

 midtiporus the funnels of the nephridia belonging to the genital 

 segments were actually converted into the gonad-duct funnels. 

 On theoretical grounds only my contention has been questioned 

 by Mr. Goodrich ^ In his opinion, and to this view Prof. 

 Lankester has given in his adhesion '^, there can be no connection 

 between the funnels of the tAvo kinds of tubes, inasmuch as the 

 gonad-funnels are morphologically different from the nephridial 

 funnels, being the internal apertures of the " coelomo- ducts." 

 That coelomo-ducts quite distinct from nephridia exist in the 

 Oligochseta I fully believe; but I am not convinced that they 

 are the oviducts and sperm-ducts. As real coelomo-ducts I reckon 

 the poi-es vipon the xiiith segment in JSfemertodrilus, the " sjjerma- 

 thecal sac " and its external orifice in Lyhiodrilus, and a vaiiety of 

 similar structures which are in effect ducts leading from the coelom 

 to the exterior. Nor can there be any possible confusion between 

 such structures and nephridia. It may be readily admitted that 



1 Loc. cit. pi. xix. fig. 40. 



" Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci. xxxiii. (n. s.) p. 495. 



3 Op. cit. xxxvii. (n. s.) p. 491. 



* A Treatise on Zoology : edited by E. Ray Lankester, part ii. p. 13. 



