1901.J 



FROM BRITISH EAST AFRICA. 



341 



resemble those of P. violaeeus. The accompauyiug drawings 

 (text-fig. 84) show theii- considerable variety of form, which is 

 very striking when a portion of the contents of the spermathecal 

 sac is teased out in glycerine. Claparede \ as is well known, at 

 first mistook the sperraatophores of Tnbife.v for a parasitic 

 organism which he termed Pachiidermon, a mistake which was 

 later rectified by himself and by Eay Lankester'. Had Claparede 

 made his discovery upon the pi'esent species, the mistake would 

 have been equally natural. Tor these remarkable spermatophores, 

 when of large size, are invariabl_y twisted and coiled, precisely like 



Text-fig. 84. 



Spermatopljores of Polytorcutus hindei, greatly maguified. 



a bunch of parasitic Nematoids, which animals do occur in the 

 tissues of earthworms. The vermiform a])pearance of the sperma- 

 tophores is shown in the drawing (text-fig. 84). There are, how- 

 ever, many of the spermatophores which are much smaller, and ] 

 have selected a series to illustrate the main varieties which I have 

 observed. The small spermatophores may subsequently gro\\", 

 though I have noticed no signs of immaturity about them or 

 evidence of any kind that they do grow while within the sperma- 

 thecal sac. 



The complicated coils into which some of the spermatophores 

 have thrown themselves seem to me to indicate the strong possi- 

 bility that they are motile. There is no doubt whatever that the 



' "Etudes Anatouiiques sur les Aunelides, Turbellaries, Opalines et Grega- 

 rines observes dans les Hebrides." M6m, Soc. Phys. et Hist. Nat. Geneve, xvi. 

 1861, p. 88. 



2 " On the Structure and Origin of the Spermatophoi-es or Sperin-ropes ol' 

 Tubifex," Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci. xi. p. 189. For a fuller account of the 

 literature of the spermatophores in the Tubificidte, see Vejdovsky's ' System 

 u. Morph. d. Oligoch^ten,' Prag, 1884, p., 151. 



Pboo. Zool. Soo.— 1901. Yol. T. No. XXIll. 23 



