236 
FRANK E. BEDDARD. 
§ Integument. 
I have elsewhere (4) criticised Perrier’s figures of the epi- 
dermis, and have now to make some remarks upon the pene- 
tration of blood-capillaries into the epidermis. 
The vascularity of the epidermis in Annelids was first made 
known by Lankester (19) in Hirudo; subsequently Bourne 
(12) showed that in all the Gnathobdellidae the epidermis was 
traversed by blood-capillaries. Claparede (13), and later 
Horst (17) and v. Mojsisovics (21), figured blood-capillaries in 
the clitellum of Lumbricus, but did not find them in the 
general epidermis. The first record of the presence of intra- 
epidermic blood-capillaries in an Earthworm is by myself (5) 
in Megascolex; subsequently (6) I found the same thing in 
Perichaeta and Perionyx. The figures of Vejdovsky 
(29), Rosa (25), and Benham (9, No. 3) show that the epi- 
dermis of Criodrilus is also vascular. I have now to state 
that in Urochaeta blood-capillaries penetrate between the 
cells of the epidermis. In the Leeches and in Criodrilus 
the blood-capillaries form loops in the epidermis, but in Uro- 
chaeta I could never trace a returning limb of the capillary 
which entered the epidermis. Judging from Yejdovsky’s 
figures (pi. viii, figs. 16, 17) of Limnodrilus, the blood- 
capillaries which enter the epidermis of that worm appear 
to end abruptly in the same way. 
Quite recently the brothers Sarasin (27) have described the 
penetration of blood-capillaries into the epidermis of Peri- 
cliaeta (without referring, I may remark, to my own record of 
this fact, which may, however, have been inaccessible), which 
they furthermore observed to open on to the surface 
of the body, thus putting the blood-vascular system into 
communication with the exterior. This, if true, is a most 
remarkable fact. I cannot, however, pending the publication 
of their more detailed account, accept it. The blood- 
capillaries of Urochaeta reach to the very cuticle, but 
there they stop. Furthermore, the following appears to be 
an argument against the free communication of the integu- 
