132 
RICHARD ASSHETON. 
dye disappeared from the genernl tissues, but wns retained 
by certain parts. On placing the animals into Hermann’s 
or Flemming’s solution afterwards the blue parts were 
intensified, and some from which the blue had disappeared 
stood out aofain iu a kind of indioro blue-black. 
The organs affected permanently are, I believe, the nervous 
and excretory tissues. The brain is coloured blue, but not 
very strongly ; I could not trace by this method any nerve- 
trunks passing from it. The alimentary canal, I think, was 
hardly affected, with the exception of the rectum, the cells of 
which became an intense bine. It is hardly probable that the 
walls of the rectum are in any way modified with reference to 
the nervous system. The lines of cells on the stalk, as before 
mentioned, are also slightly coloured blue (which became 
intensified after fixation by Flemming’s or Hermann’s flnids). 
It is quite probable that the rectum cells may have special 
excretory functions. The other parts which are intensely 
coloured are a pair of organs in the base of the lophophore, 
and a similar pair rather lower down in the body just above 
the “ liver diverticula.” 
These are probably excretory organs. I have already 
referred to them as the lophophore and body kidneys 
respectively. They, it is true, receive very distinct nerve- 
trunks from the brain, but their whole appearance is that of 
an excretory organ rather than a sense-organ. There is a 
pair of spaces bounded by an irregular layer of cells still 
lower and nearer the sides which adjoin the second pair of 
excretory bodies, which I have not Tioticed to be coloured by 
the methylene-blue. ’I’his latter corresponds more in position 
with the curious “ pagoda ”- like organs described ns an 
excretory organ in L. loxalina. 
The two pairs of organs (figs. 7, l.k. and 8, b.k.) are cleai’ly the 
organs described by Prouho in L. annelidicola and by 
Nickerson in L. Davenporti as excretory organs. They are 
composed of several large highly vacuolated cells closely 
pressed against one another and are slightly yellow in the 
living animal. 
