BRANCHIURA SOWERBYI BEDDARD. 299 
this latter species the ‘anterior ventral’ is continued backwards for a short distance 
on the intestine, beyond the level of union of the hearts. 
To return to the course of the ventral vessel in the species under description : the 
vessel formed in segment ix by the junction of the hearts extends to the posterior 
end of the body ; it is more sinuous than the dorsal vessel ; it is situated on the right 
of the nerve cord, the dorsal vessel being on the left. It is less intimately united 
to the intestine than the latter, not being covered by chloragogen cells; it is somewhat 
widely separated from the intestine in the genital seements. 
The /ateral commissures in front of the hearts form an elegant tracery of compli- 
eated loops. In the posterior part of the body the loops run on the anterior face of 
the septa, and give branches outwards to the body-wall, which form the cutaneous 
plexus. This extends through about the posterior half of the body; it consists of 
a number of fair-sized vessels which penetrate the muscular coats, and so come to lie 
between the cells of the surface epithelium. ‘There are four chief capillary vessels 
on each side in each segment, at about equal distances from each other ; the condition 
may therefore be compared with that in L. hoffmeisterr, as described by VEsDOVSKY 
(11, p. 116, and plate vi. figs. 16, 17); the special mode of branching there described 
is not, however, found in the present species; there is no collection of chloragogen 
cells round the origin of the cutaneous branches; and the cutaneous vessels in the 
form under description branch freely and anastomose. Though sometimes the secondary 
branches seem to come to a blind end, this is probably due to the pressure on the 
specimen, and I do not think they ever really end blindly. 
Nephridia are present in segments vii and viii; there is then a hiatus as far as 
segment xiii. Thenceforwards, too, they are not present in every segment; three or 
more consecutive segments may possess nephridia, and then they may be absent from 
one or two; two or three more will have them, and so on; but there is no general 
tule as to their distribution. The funnel is small, with long cilia round its margin ; 
these wave slowly and languidly ; but a few long flame-like flagella, arising from within 
the funnel and beating down the tube, are much more active; these flame-like flagella 
are repeated several times in the course of the tube. The tube itself is long, loosely 
coiled, without a terminal vesicle; it ends on the surface immediately in front of 
and lateral to the setal sac. The peculiarity of the nephridia of segments vii and viii 
—that they are surrounded by large pear-shaped peritoneal cells—has already been 
mentioned. 
The cerebral ganylion is deeply cleft in front, slightly so behind (fig. 15). 
The reproductive organs were well developed in a considerable number, perhaps 
in the majority of specimens. The tesfes are in x, attached by a narrow base to the 
junction of septum ;%, with the ventral body-wall. The funnel is also in x, on the 
opposite septum; it has the usual characters. The vas deferens is in xi; it is long 
and much coiled, wider in its first than in the later part of its course (39m as against 
274 later); its lumen is also relatively and absolutely greater, and its walls stain 
