252 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



would be effected by the motility of the sperms, enabling 

 them to wriggle free from the waste matter and make their 

 way down to the spermatocyst, either along the penial groove 

 or down the vagina itself. 



During the coupling it is not unusual for the female to 

 extrude the egg cordon, or the eggs may be laid some hours 

 after the individuals have separated. Fertilisation takes place 

 within the fertilisation chamber by sperms from the spermato- 

 cyst meeting the eggs which have just entered by the little 

 hermaphrodite duct. The albumen gland provides the eggs 

 with a coating of albumen, but as eggs are not found within 

 this gland, it is inferred that the albumen gland discharges 

 its secretion into the fertilisation chamber. The eggs then 

 leave the fertilisation chamber and enter the winding portion 

 of the mucous gland, pass through the smaller of the loops of 

 the mucous gland, and finally through the large loop of the 

 same gland. Here a group of from six to ten eggs is provided 

 with a clear gelatinous capsule, the shells are coated with 

 mucus and the balls so formed are strung together to make 

 the cylindrical egg string. It is not known, however, what 

 portion of the mucous gland makes the shell, though the 

 natural inference is that the winding portion does so. The 

 cordon passes out by the oviduct, whose glandular walls secrete 

 a lubricating fluid. On leaving the common genital aperture 

 the cordon often makes use of the spermatic groove as a guide, 

 so that the eggs may even appear to come from the penial 

 aperture. More frequently, however, the string becomes free 

 about an inch in front of the genital orifice, distorting the 

 spermatic groove at the point where it does so. It is thus 

 possible to infer, from the presence of the crinkle in the other- 

 wise smooth groove, that oviposition has recently taken place. 



The egg string is not extruded continuously, but in little 

 spurts of about an inch at a time " like paying out lengths 

 of cable." As it frees itself it cnrls backwards and forwards, 



