314 
SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Structure of Vermiculus pilosus.* — Mr. E. S. Goodrich has made 
a further study of this interesting new Oligochsete, which it will be 
remembered he found on the sea shore near Weymouth. He finds that 
the following are its chief characters. It has four bundles to each 
segment of furcate setae, generally three per bundle ; a dense covering 
of hair-like processes ; a vascular system, containing red blood, and 
composed of dorsal and ventral longitudinal vessels, communicating by 
means of lateral vessels, which branch into the body- wall. There are no 
hearts or commissural vessels, but the longitudinal and transverse dorsal 
vessels have an elaborate system of unicellular valves. The brain is 
deeply cleft in front, and there is a nerve-cord bearing muscular strands 
of considerable size. A compact nephridium has a peculiarly modified 
funnel. In the tenth segment there is a pair of testes, and in the 
eleventh a pair of ovaries. Two short sperm-ducts open into a median 
chamber, which opens to the exterior by a large median pore. The 
oviducts are rudimentary. These and other characters place this little 
worm in a very isolated position. The dense covering of sense-hairs, 
although, perhaps, of no great morphological importance, is quite unique 
among the Oligochasta. The late development of the spermiducal 
chamber is another character quite peculiar to this worm ; it is difficult 
to conjecture what is the function of this chamber, but it is possible 
that it acts as a sucker during copulation, and the disposition of its 
muscles would favour this supposition. On the whole, it must be con- 
cluded that Vermiculus stands very much by itself ; the shape of its setae, 
and, above all, the situation of its gonads, place it in the family 
Tubificidae, but its more intimate relationships remain obscure for the 
present. 
Fertilisation in the Earthworm. j — Miss K. Foot gives a prelimi- 
nary account of a detailed study of the eggs of Allolobophora feetida. 
She reports that the “ sperm ” grows very rapidly just before the eggs 
are laid, so that one sperm may more than double its length within two 
hours. These sperms have a long head with a spine at its tip, the 
middle piece of some length, and a long tail. They are found free in 
the cocoons for some ten minutes after laying, and then penetrate the 
eggs. The egg gives off two polar bodies after the cocoon is deposited. 
Of these, the first divides into two ; the three thus formed subsequently 
break up into spherical bodies that lie irregularly between the egg and 
its membrane. 
Nemathelminthes. 
Helminthological Notes. — Dr. M. StossichJ discusses the genus 
Ankylostomum , whose species are parasitic in mammals, with the excep- 
tion of one from the boa. He briefly describes A. duodenale Dubini in 
man and Anthropoids, A. perniciosum Linstow in the tiger, A. tubseforme 
in many species of Felis , A. trigonoceplialum Eudolphi in many species 
of Canis, and A. Bose. 
He describes § Solenophorus meg aloe ephalus from Python molurus , and 
notes a terminal bifurcation of the strobila. 
* Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., xxxvii. (1895) pp. 253-67 (3 pis.), 
t Journ. Morphol., ix. (1894). See Amer. Natural., xxix. (1895) pp. 62 and 3. 
j Boll. Soc. Adriatico Sci. Nat., xvi. (1895) pp. 21-5. 
§ Tom. cit., pp. 27-32 (2 pis.). 
