1901.] rROil BRITISH. EAST AFRICA. 355 



illustrated iu the ligure as two ovidiict.s with two fuuueis, each of 

 which funnels will then correspond to one of the two ovaries. 

 The tube which opens into the sac is clearly continuous at the 

 other end with the oviduct which leads to the exterior. It is as 

 clearly not a diverticulum of the spermathecal sac, so different is 

 the histological structure of the two. The only view that I can 

 take of it is to put it dow-n as a second oviduct which unites with 

 the other, as the two sperin-ducts unite on their way to the 

 exterior,; the inappropriate position of the two funnels, which 

 seems to militate against such a view, may be fairly explained by 

 the growth of the enormous spermathecal-sac system. 



1 would further point out that the funnels of the oviducts 

 which open into the receptaculum ovorum look backward ; they 

 are absolutely turned round, and the tube leading to the exterior 

 starts from the front of the funnel and not from behind it, as is 

 normal iu Oligochaeta. The same is the case with the presumed 

 funnel of segment xiii., corresponding to the only funnel of 

 segment xiv. The fact that the second (pi'esumed) funnel of 

 segment xiii. looks forward may be perhaps put down to the 

 disappearance of the ovaries and of the receptacula seminis of 

 that side of the body, a fact which has already been referred to. 

 It has retained or reverted to what is presumably the ancestral 

 condition. On the opposite side of the body to that which I have 

 just described, there is no receptaculum ovorum and apparently 

 no ovary ; bnt of this latter fact I cannot be so certain as I am 

 about the former, of which, indeed, there is not the slightest doubt. 

 It became a matter of interest therefore to ascertain what w-ere 

 the conditions of the oviduct. At its orifice into the spermathecal 

 sac above there was no diffei'euce whatever. The tube, expanding 

 into what I consider to be a funnel anteriorly, left the sac as a 

 tube in which I did not detect cilia until it arrived at the level of 

 the missing receptaculum. At this point— where I could not 

 find the least vestige of a receptaculum — the tube passed wdthout 

 any change of calibre into the ciliated region, which I traced, not 

 absolutely, but very nearly, to the exterior. The two tubes made 

 one continuous tube with the same low columnar epithelium and 

 thick muscular walls, and w ithout any more vestige of a second 

 funnel than there was of a receptaculum. Both of the two 

 structures have absolutely vanished. We have thus on the left 

 side of the body a single tube of quite different histological 

 structure to, but leading from, the ccelomic pouch, which con- 

 stitutes the spermatheca of this worm, to the exterior. 



This arrangement of the oviduct is not, however, peculiar to 

 StvMmannia. In Lyhiodrilus the oviduct divides before the tube 

 ends in its funnels. One branch opens by the usual funnel 

 into the receptaculum, the other into the spermathecal sac. 

 Neither funnel is large, and I could not see any ciliation in either. 

 I find that my account of Hijperiodrilus and Heliodrilus ' is not 

 quite accurate as regards the relations of the oviducal funnels. 



^ " On the Structure of two new Genera of Eurth worms, &c.," Quart. Journ. 

 Micr. Sci. xsxii. p. 235. 



