1901.] F&OilL BBIXISH EAST Ai'RICA: 357 



In mau}' earthw orms, for example iu Sparyanopldlas \ the o\^i- 

 ducal funnel opens partly into the xiiith segment, but the greater 

 part opens uito the egg-sac behind. It might be held that the 

 Eudrilid® present us with a simple exaggeration of this state of 

 affairs. The separation between the two parts of the oviducal 

 funnel is more empliasized, and at last results in its complete 

 division into two funnels. 



On the other hand, as Dr. Eenham has pointed out, the actual 

 change which seems to be more possible is that the funnel entirely 

 loses its orifice into the xiiith segment, and comes to open entirely 

 into the egg-sac ; this at least is what occurs in Eudr'dm. It 

 must be borne in mind that iu that genus, which is in some 

 i-espects the most specialized of the Eudrilid;e, the spermathecal 

 system is constructed on lines rather different from those upon 

 which the spermathecal syste;n of other genera of the family are 

 built. Now it has been shown that a large part at least of the 

 complicated series of sacs which constitute the spermathecal 

 system originate from the septa of which they are outgrowths, 

 like the egg-sacs or the sperm-sac. It seems therefore at least a 

 possible view that the lateral sacs of Stulilmannia which encircle 

 the gut are to be compared to the egg-sacs of the xivth segment ; 

 that, in fact, they are an anterior pair of egg-sacs belonging to the 

 xiiith segment. To these the second pair of funnels belong. 

 In Eudrihis, where there are no such lateral sacs, tliere are Jio 

 oviducal funnels in the xiiith segment. Just as in Stahlinannia, 

 where on one side of the body the egg-sacs of the xivth segment 

 are wanting, there is a corresponding absence of the funnels of 

 that segment. 



Before leaving this matter I would direct attention again to the 

 remarkable asymmetry — which I found so frequently that I am 

 disposed to regard it as normal — of the female reproductive appa- 

 ratus in this species. I may compare with this an apparently 

 similar, and also apparently quite normal, atrophy of one oviduct 

 and the absence of its external orifice iu Typhoeus nicholsoni, a 

 species recently described by myself ", and the asymmetry of the 

 pores in Polytoreulus gregorianus. Asymmetry, of at all a constant 

 character, is so rare in' Annelids, that it is legitimate to emphasize 

 these two cases. 



The sperm-ducts of the genus Stuhlmannia show a peculiarity 

 v\'hich has not been apparently mentioned. It was first pointed 

 out by Rosa '^ in the case of the genus TeleadrUus that the funnels 

 of the sperm-ducts, instead of opening in the normal way opposite 

 to the testes in the xth and xith segments, bent round and opened 

 into the xith and xiith segments. I found subsequently the same 

 arrangement in Hyperiodrilus. I had thought, however, that this 

 peculiarity was confined to the Eudi'iline division of the Eudri- 



^ Benham, " A new English G-einis of Aquatic Oligochreta. &e.," Quai-1. 

 Journ. Micr. Sci. xxxiv. p. 155. 



* P.Z.S. 1901,vol.i. p. 195. 



* " Lombrichi delle Scioa," Auu. Mus. Oiv. G-euova (2), vi. p. 574. 

 Piioc. ZooL. Soc— 1901, Vol. I. No, XXIV. 24 



