610 
GILBERT E, JOHNSON. 
but, being slightly longer than the nematode, allows it to 
move a short distance backwards and forwards. It appears 
to be formed from the cast-off outer layer of the cuticle of 
the nematode, but it is covered with lymph-cells, some of 
which usually remain attached to it even after the disintegra- 
tion of the brown body as a whole. It is seldom extended 
straight. The commonest shapes in which it is bent are the 
figures 3 and 8, and it is often coiled in a ring or a spiral (PI. 
37, fig. 5). 
I have seen the coelomic form in the act of emerging from 
the cyst on numerous occasions. One end of the cyst — 
usually the anterior end— is ruptured or pushed off as a cap, 
and the nematode works its way out by a prolonged series of 
writhings and contortions. Among the constituents of the 
disintegrating brown bodies, nematodes, covered with amoebo- 
cytes but with the cysts not yet formed underneath these, are 
frequently to be seen. 
In addition to the nematodes congregated in the brown 
bodies at the tail, independent encysted individuals surrounded 
by ccelomic corpuscles are found in smaller numbers in all 
parts of the coelom. Unencysted individuals also occur. 
The coelomic form is sometimes found imbedded in the mus- 
cular layer of the body-wall or encysted on the septa (one of 
the positions given by Schneider, who does not mention the 
brown bodies in the tail and may not have seen them). 
Lankester (4, PI. vii, fig. 12) gives a drawing of a nematode in 
the former position. 
I have examined other species of earthworms besides Lu mb. 
ter res tr is, the common earthworm, and have found the brown 
bodies in Lumb. rubellus Hofi^meister, Allolobophora 
longa Ude, All. turgida Eisen, and Octolasium 
cyaneum Savigny, and I do not doubt that they occur in 
other species as well. All except those in All. turgida con- 
tained encysted larval nematodes. 
Though varying considerably in size and stoutness of bnild, 
the coelomic form is always found in a larval, never in an 
adult, state in the freshly killed worm. 
