ON ANNELIDA. 89 



which communicate by a lateral orifice partly with a large 

 bladder, which M. Otto thinks to be the stomach, and partly 

 with a single intestine, which continues it ; the first oesopha- 

 gus, more narrow, has been most frequently found empty, but 

 sometimes filled with a whitish juice, while the second was 

 always filled with the same brown matter as the rest of the in- 

 testine ; the latter, placed under the other, has also more 

 ample and more solid parietes. At the place where they 

 approximate to form a common intestine, both adhere with the 

 gastric bladder and with the intestine, but the first more with 

 the former, and the second with the latter; so that it appears 

 that the bladder should be the continuation of the superior 

 cesophagus, and the intestine of the inferior. This bladder is 

 large, spheroidal, very thin, diaphanous, most generally- 

 empty, but sometimes filled with a yellowish juice. M. Otto 

 does not think that this is a true stomach, but a sort of bladder 

 proper for suction. On each side of the anterior mouth is an 

 organ, in the form of a cylindrical coecum, an inch in length, 

 flexuous, and full of a viscous juice. M. Otto makes this to be 

 a large salivary gland. The continued intestine is very nar- 

 row and cylindrical ; it makes many convolutions round the 

 bladder, traverses the membranaceous partition, assumes the 

 dimensions and cellular form of a bulky intestine, and pro- 

 ceeds directly to the anus, surrounded in its course, as well as 

 the narrow intestine, by a hepatic mass, thick, and of a yel- 

 low colour. 



The apparatus of generation consists of many small sacs 

 of eggs, situated in the anterior part of the visceral cavity, 

 and attached together, and with the peritoneum, by filaments 

 extremely fine. In the month of January, some individuals 

 had neither these little sacs nor ovules, while others had them 

 very much developed. M. Otto was not able to find the ori- 

 fice through which they could pass. 



He was easily able to convince himself of the existence of 



