176 JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY, VOL. 15, NO. 6, APRIL, I917. 



commonly present in Helicids. Towards the lower end of this 

 glandular oviduct, a prostate (the name is exceptionally inappropriate) 

 is found with the usual granular cells, opening into the oviduct by a 

 narrow channel. The walls of the oviduct then become simpler and 

 it is continued as the free oviduct, lined with plain epithelium and 

 with a moderate muscular investment, to the external opening on the 

 right side of the neck. About half-way along this free oviduct opens 

 a narrow duct which runs upward in apposition with the oviduct till 

 it ends in an ovoid spermatheca lying at the junction of the free and 

 glandular portions of the oviduct. The parts from the lower end of 

 the glandular oviduct downwards in two specimens are shown dia- 

 grammatically in the figure as reconstructed from the sections ; the 

 magnification line in each case represents o"i mm. 



There appears to be no specialised male apparatus. The findings 

 described have been unambiguous, uniform and consistent in all the 

 twenty specimens examined. In none of them has anything like a vas 

 deferens or penis been found, nor any structure which could not be 

 identified as something other than male genitalia. The glandular 

 oviduct shows a certain amount of folding of the walls, but there is 

 no specialised part nor any area of ciliated epithelium such as are 

 commonly believed to be associated with the passage of spermatozoa. 

 The so-called prostate is, of course, not an exclusively male appendage. 



The absence of a male genital duct cannot be accepted without 

 some hesitation and it is naturally difficult to be convinced of such a 

 negative conclusion. There are several possible sources of error. 

 (a) It being conceivable, though scarcely likely, that the results 

 were due to the method employed, other small species were examined 

 by the same process. In Pupa iiinbilicata, Vallojiia piikhella exceu- 

 trica, Pyrmidnla rupestris and in some specimens of Acanthimda 

 aculeata there is no difficulty in seeing that there is something else 

 present besides the large and obvious oviduct and spermatheca, and 

 the method admirably displays the anatomy of the larger species such 

 as Hyaiinia pura, radialula^ fiilva and ciystallina. Of Piincium 

 pygmauin and Carychhim ffiinimuf/i I can at present make out but 

 little ; the organs are fearfully small. (l>) The possibility that 

 lamellata is dioecious is disposed of by the fact that in all the speci- 

 mens in whicli the sections were carried far enough [i.e. in fourteen 

 examples) both ova and spermatozoa were found in the hermaphrodite 

 gland, (c) I have no evidence of the maturity of the specimens 

 except the size of the shells, and as there is no formation of a peristome 

 or rib no other criterion seems available.^ The specimens examined 



I The presence of ova and spermatozoa in the hermaphrodite gland is of no great weight in 

 this connection, 



