13. On the Reproductive System of Atopos, Simroth. 



By Ekendranath Ghosh. 



[Read at the First Indian Science Congress, January 16, 1914.] 



The genus Atopos was constituted by Simroth (5) in 1891 



for the reception of three species of slugs included in the genus 



Vaginula, Latrille, which forms the t}?pe- genus of the family 



Vaginulidae. Later on, Heude established a new family, 



Rathouisiidse, for the reception of the present genus and a few 

 others. 



In 1900 Babor established a new subgenus Podangia 

 for Atopos schildii, which differs from the other species of th<- 

 genus in some minor details. 



Since the establishment of the genus, a good number of 

 species have been described from time to time, but the anatomy 

 has been studied in a very few instances only. Simroth des- 

 cribed and figured the main anatomical features of the three spe- 

 cies he established, viz. A. semperi, A. leuckarti and A. strubelli. 

 Later on Collinge (1, 2) while describing some new species of 

 Atopos from Malaysia briefly described the gross anatomy 

 of A. maximus and A. sarasini and illustrated his descrip- 

 tions with figures of the digestive and reproductive systems. 

 Two years ago I described the anatomy of A. (Podangia) 

 sanguinolenta (Stolickza, MS), and last year the anatomy 

 of A. Jcempii (4) a new species from the Abor country and of 

 another new species from Tenasserim which has not yet 

 been published. Recently, I have studied the anatomy of 

 a big specimen (probably A. maximus or another species closely 

 allied to it) from Tavoy. I should specially mention that I 

 received all the specimens from the Indian Museum. 



The reproductive system of Atopos consists of the following 

 parts : 



1. The hermaphrodite gland is a small lobulated body 

 lying on the ventrolateral aspect of the anterior end of the 

 digestive gland. Two types of hermaphrodite gland may be 

 recognized as follows : 



(a) A distinct hermaphrodite gland separate from the al- 

 bumen gland. This type occurs in A. maximus, A. sarasini, A. 

 sanguinolenta and in another species (not named) mentioned in 

 the paper. In .4. sanguinolenta, the hermaphrodite gland is a 

 big lobulated body lying in contact with the albumen gland. 

 In A. sarasini, the gland lies embedded in the albumen gland, 

 although quite distinct from the latter. 



(6) A compact gland inseparably connected with the 

 albumen gland so that the whole gland is divisible into two 



