366 
NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
a science, at the present day, we as strongly urge its claims as an 
invaluable adjunct in many studies. 
Surely it has revealed isolated facts in structure and growth, it 
has created the sciences of biology and embryology, it has added much 
to our knowledge of morphology, and become of incalculable benefit 
to the physiologist and practising physician ; and yet, of what real 
value would all its revelations be to us, without the systematic 
grouping of facts and knowledge which comes with the development 
of these sciences ; some of which, indeed, the microscope has helped 
to create ? ” * 
This is one view of the question. It is intended in the next 
number to give a translation of Dr. Ed. Kaiser’s article on the same 
subject in the last number of the Berlin ‘ Zeitschrift fiir Mikroskopie.’ 
On a rare Form of the Hepatic Organ in the Worms . — In the gene- 
rality of worms the liver, represented by a cellular layer attached to 
the intestinal wall, and covering it to a greater or less extent, appears 
to differ fundamentally from the same organ in the Mollusca, Crus- 
tacea, &c. 
The examination of certain types shows, however, that this dis- 
tinction is far from being as absolute as might at first be thought, 
and in some of the Annelida, belonging to the genus Hirudo, or Chae- 
topoda, the biliary secretion has a tendency to localize itself in small 
caeca inserted on the margins of the intestinal canal; but these cases, 
which nearly always coincide with peculiar conditions of the digestive 
tube, are too rare and too imperfect to show an actual morphological 
relationship with the arrangements peculiar to the higher Inverte- 
brata. The latter, on the contrary, were found, in all their essential 
characteristics, in a Helminth which I recently had an opportunity of 
examining, and the observation of which proved most instructive in 
this resj^ect. 
This Nematoid, belonging to the Agamonemee, was seen by Dies 
encysted in the muscles of various fishes, and was sent to me by 
M. H. Filhol, who collected many specimens of them during his stay 
in Campbell Island. In this species the initial or oesophageal region 
of the digestive tube is somewhat slender, and presents no other glands 
but small follicles of irregular shape containing a viscid hyaline fluid 
studded with fine greyish granulations. 
The middle intestine which immediately succeeds, is readily 
recognized by the inequality between its diameter and that of the 
preceding portion ; this difference is owing less to a sensible increase 
in the calibre of the intestinal tube than to the development of an 
external mass of a brownish colour which surrounds it and appears to 
be blended with it. 
If this mass is teased and viewed with an amplification of and 
then of it will be evident that it is formed of glandular tissue. 
It is composed, in fact, of a multitude of culs-de-sac bounded by a fine 
membrane, which becomes slightly thicker at the periphery. In their 
interior are seen a great number of rounded granulations brownish or 
* ‘American Quarterly Microscopical Journal,’ vol. i. p. 58. 
