120 



of the other ; but that a common canal resulting from the union of 

 the channels through which the ova from the female and the sper- 

 matic filaments from the male organ passed, contained the fructified 

 result of such a reunion, as that of the opposite sexes could alone 

 secure. 



The presence of a product in an organ, however, not being suffi- 

 cient to ensure that it was produced by, and not introduced into, 

 that organ, the question naturally arose in the minds of some, whe- 

 ther we were justified in regarding the organs in the Linguatula 

 tcenioides containing the ova, as ovaries, and those containing the 

 spermatozoa as testicles. At first some doubted, and at last others 

 have denied, the reunion of the sexes in this species of Pentastoma. 



VanBeneden, the champion of the latter class of naturalists, states* 

 that in four examples of the species of "Linguatula de Diesing," 

 and in two others of another kind found in the lung of a Boa, he 

 ascertained the male and female organs of generation to be in differ- 

 ent individuals, and that Owen, Valentin, Von Siebold and others, 

 have erred in describing the L. tcenioides as a hermaphrodite. He 

 describes the testicle in the male as being about % of the length of 

 the body, and lying behind the alimentary canal, consisting of a 

 pouch with thin parietes, terminating behind in a cul-de-sac. From 

 the upper part of the testicle branch off two vasa deferentia, and 

 from the end of each, floats an organ which he looks upon as a pro- 

 state. These open into round vesicles constricted in the middle, 

 each containing a coiled-up tube, which he describes as a penis. 



I have quoted Van Beneden's description of a male Pentastoma, 

 because in the nasal fossa of the Cobra, from which I obtained my 

 four specimens of entozoa, I found two small Pentastoma of about 

 1^ inch in length (PI. XL VI. fig. 2) ; and on dissecting one I found it 

 to agree in every respect with Van Beneden's description of the male 

 Linguatula. The question then occurred to me, whether or not I 

 might look upon them as being two males and my large specimens 

 four females of the same species. The two small entozoa found in 

 the nasal fossa look exactly like some other Pentastoma which I ob- 

 tained from the cellular tissue of a Morocco Cobra. Even taking 

 into account the fact that the male is often much smaller than the 

 female entozoon, their external characters and apparently their mode 

 of life are so very different from those of the large worms found in 

 the lungs, that I can scarcely believe them to belong to the same 

 species of animal. Even admitting that they were the males of my 

 large entozoon, I do not see how they could get their spermatozoa 

 into the spermatheca of the large animals. Van Beneden says he 

 found an opening for the penis to get out immediately behind the 

 mouth, but then this organ, which he calls the penis t, is only a few 

 lines in length, and consequently could project the seminal fluid but 

 a trifling way up the uterus, which, as before mentioned, is 40 inches 

 long. The pouches containing the semen are situated too at the 



* Ann. des Sciences Naturelles, 3me serie, tome 11-12, p. 325. 

 t I examined what he took for the penis, and I have some doubts if it, or 

 rather they, for there are two, are really what he supposes them to be. 



