246 Memoirs of the Indian Museum. [Vol. VIT, 



Subfam. TRIGASTBINAE. 



Genus Eudichogaster. 



Eudichogaster ashworthi, Mchlsn. 



Plate XI, figs. 50, 51. 



I have lately received, by the kindness of Dr. J. H. Ashworth, two specimens 

 of this species, of the same batch which furnished the types of the species described 

 by Michaelsen (2). I need only add very few notes on the peculiarities exhibited by 

 these. 



The papillae of the spermathecal pores are not always symmetrical ; in the speci- 

 men to which I devoted most attention, the papilla on the right side of segment viii 

 took up about the middle two-fourths of the segment, that on the left side the anterior 

 half; those on ix took up the anterior two-fifths of the segment, and encroached 

 somewhat on the intersegmental furrow. 



The gizzards in segments v and vi are short, and do not include the whole length 

 of the oesophagus in these segments ; a soft ring is thus left between the two, and 

 another between the second and the hinder limit of its segment. 



The specimen differed from Michaelsen's in the seminal vesicles; instead of 

 vesicles in ix and xii, I find a pair in xii, a pair in x attached to the posterior septum 

 of the segment, and a single vesicle in ix, on the left side only (one specimen only 

 dissected). 



I think Michaelsen's paper contains a slip where he speaks, in the diagnosis and 

 again in the detailed description, of the diverticulum of the spermatheca entering 

 the distal end of the duct. Michaelsen always uses the word distal to mean "nearer 

 the surface of the body ' ' (in such a case as the present, when speaking of an internal 

 organ) ; the diverticulum however enters the duct at the ental end of the latter, just 

 below the ampulla, and the same is the case in the numerous specimens to which 

 reference is made below. 1 



The copulatory setae are, according to Michaelsen, found on the papillae of the 

 male field (but not in connection with the prostatic apertures), and doubtfully in the 

 neighbourhood of the spermathecal apertures ; they are of a well defined type. In 

 the specimen which I dissected I found them in the neighbourhood of the spermathecal 



1 There is a difference in the use of the words "proximal" and "distal" by English and German 

 writers. I was taught to use them for " nearer to " and " remoter from, the fixed point of attachment " ; 

 and Beddard, for example, among UTiters on this group, uses the words in the same sense. Thus in 

 such an organ as the spermatheca, which is attached by its duct to the inner surface of the body-wall 

 and projects freely inwards into the coelom, a diverticulum attached to the duct near the body-wall 

 would be proximal, and one attached to the duct near the ampulla would be distal as compared with 

 the other. So for example in a well-known elementary textbook it is said that the testes of Hydra are 

 distally situated, i.e. near the oral and distant from the fixed end of the animal. Michaelsen not in- 

 frequently queries Beddard'suse of the words, and himself employs "proximal " and "distal" to signify 

 respectively " nearness to " and " remoteness from, the central axis of the body." In view of this con- 

 fusion I have for some time past used "ectal" and "ental" to signify "nearness to the surface of the 

 body " and " nearness to the internal end," in the case of sach structures as those under discussion. 



