DESCRIPTIONS OF GENERA AND SPECIES 645 



spermathecae is common to both species; on the other hand, the nephridiopores of 

 this species are stated to open in front of the dorsal setae — a common position to 

 find them in in this family, but different from that of G. maximus; there is no 

 mention of the divergence of the setae posteriorly ; this, however, might be regarded 

 as of less importance for purposes of generic definition, since in one species of 

 Anteiis we meet with the same condition, which is not to be met with in other 

 species. The male pores are said to be on the seventeenth segment ; the sperm-sacs 

 are extremely long, reaching back as far as to the fifty-seventh segment. The most 

 remarkable statement, however, concerns the ovaries ; these are placed by Peebier 

 in the eighteenth segment! The only other species in which the ovaries have been 

 said to show this remarkable abnormality in position is Rhinodrilus proboscideus 

 (see p. 64a). 



Genus Sparganophilus, Benham. 



DEFiiriTiOBr. Prostomium not marked off from buccal segment. Clitellum, XV- 

 XXV. Male pores XVIIl/XIX. No caloiferous glands. Two pairs of sperm- 

 sacs. Spermathecae in VII-IX. Sperm-duct runs in body-wall just below 

 epidermis. 



This genus has the distinction of being the only Rhinodrilid occurring in Great 

 Britain; it was discovered by Benham in the year 1891 in the Thames. Like many 

 aquatic worms it has no gizzard, and the nephridia are absent in the first few 

 segments of the body; these organs commence in the thirteenth segment. The most 

 remarkable character of the genus is the position of the sperm-duct just below the 

 epidermis ; this position is quite unique ; in several worms these tubes Ue in the 

 thickness of the body-wall, but in no other do they lie so deep as in the present 

 genus. The dorsal vessel is dilated in each of segments ix, x, xi; in segments ii-xi 

 a pair of commissural vessels unite the dorsal and the ventral vessels; there is no 

 supraintestinal vessel. Two lateral vessels arise on either side of the body, one 

 from the dorsal integumental trunk, the other from the ventral integumental trunk 

 in the fourteenth segment, and run as far as the anterior extremity of the body. 

 Although the nephridia do not commence before the thirteenth segment, there are 

 three pairs of ' salivary glands ' in segments iv, v, vi ; as these are said to have the 

 same structure as the salivary glands of Eminodrilus, it seems probable that they 

 are like the ' mucous glands ' of Pontoscolex, &c., homologous with nephridia. There 

 is but one species, viz. 



