1902.] NEW SPECIES OF EARTHWORMS. 207 



Micliaelsen \ save that the gonad cells, instead of being within the 

 spermathecal sac, were in a special sac closely adpressed to its 

 walls. The next description of this gonad is by Michaelsen. In 

 an account of several new species of the genus, Michaelsen has 

 put on record certain facts about the ovary and its relations to 

 other pai-ts of the generative system. This paper contains the 

 first positive and undoubted description of the ovary itself. In 

 P. i(jsindjaensis there is a sac (" Ovarialblase") attached to the 

 loop of the oviduct, which Michaelsen has termed the " Eitrichter- 

 blase " ; in the cavity of this are germinal cells, some of which are 

 nearly mature ova. This is plainly shown in his figure '■. As to 

 the connections of this sac, the author expresses himself as 

 follows : — " Das durch das Ovarium fast ganz erfiillte Lumen der 

 Ovarialblase setzt sich in einen Kanal fort, liber dessen inneres 

 Ende ich mich nicht ganz genau orientiren kijnnte. Entweder 

 tritt der Ovarialkanal in das Lumen der Eitiichterblase ein, nahe 

 der Stelle, an der auch der Kanal des Receptaculum ovorum in 

 dasselbe einmilndet, oder vereint sich auch direkt mit diesem 

 letzteren Kanal." It should be added that Dr. Michaelsen also 

 figures a strand of connective tissue, as he has already done in 

 P. cceruleus, attaching the ovarian sac to the parietes. In P. kiri- 

 maensis the conditions apj^ear to be a little dijQferent. The ovary 

 is contained in a narrow sac, which communicates by a narrow 

 duct with the branches right and left of the speimathecal sac, near 

 to where the oviduct also opens into that sac. 



P. arningi is again different. In this species ^ there are 

 apparently huge ovarian sacs which communicate medianly with 

 each other. Tliese narrow towards the septum xii./xiii., and it is 

 here that Michaelsen would place the ovaiies, though he was 

 \Tnable to bring forward any exact evidence of the existence of 

 these gonads. No communication was traced betw^een the ovarian 

 sacs and any other part of the egg- conducting sacs and ducts. 



It appears, therefore, that there are some differences between 

 the various species of this genus Polytoreutus in respect of the 

 relation of the ovaries to the rest of the female generative system. 

 These differences may be possibly referred to two categories ; and 

 if so, it may be ultimately desirable to subdivide the genus. For 

 in the species which possess a bursa copulatrix one arrangement 

 prevails, and in the rest, as it appears to me, another. It is 

 especially to the latter that I wish to draw attention in the present 

 communication. I find that in the species examined by myself, 

 the gonads and the ducts are probably to be compared exactly with 

 the species P. violacetis, P. cceruleus, and P. usindjaensis. If this 

 be so, then the ovary has not, up to the present, been discovered 

 in those species. I have examined two stages in the development 

 of the gonads and their ducts in Polytoreutus, one of which is 



1 " Die Regenvvui-mer Ost-Afrikas," iu ' Deutsch-Ost-Afrika,' p. 16 &c. 

 - Loc. cit. pi. i. fig. 10. 



3 " Neue unci wenig- bekannte afrikanische Terricolen," JB. Hamb. wiss. Aust. 

 xiv. p. 56. * 



