Report on an Earthworm , dbc. By Dr. W. B. Benham. 165 
The presence of these “ pharyngeal glands ” is very frequent in 
earthworms ; and although they are usually regarded as being used 
in digestion, their communication with the interior of the pharynx has 
never been recognized ; I myself have been no more fortunate than my 
predecessors. 
Another peculiarity in the pharynx, which from my own obser- 
vations on various genera seems to be very general, but which 
has received no detailed description, is the following : — The 
lumen is of different shape in different parts of the pharynx, as 
Claparede figured some twenty years ago. One of the most constant 
diverticula is a dorsally placed, flattened, and laterally extended 
pouch, communicating with the general pharyngeal cavity anteriorly, 
or sometimes along its whole extent (fig. 10). The epithelial cells 
of the roof of this dorsal pouch differ from those of the floor ; the 
latter are short, columnar or sometimes nearly cubical cells, with a 
distinct cuticle and a round nucleus. The cells forming the upper 
lining of the dorsal pouch are very much longer and narrower ; the 
nucleus is elongated oval, and lies usually near the base of the cell ; 
moreover, these dorsal cells are ciliated (fig. 1 1 ). This last fact 
I have observed in several genera, including Allolobophora, Crio- 
drilus, Allurus, and others ; and am unaware of any previous men- 
tion of the fact in earthworms, though a similar condition is met 
with in Folygordius, according to Fraipont, and in Nais, where it 
forms Semper’s “branchial region of pharynx.” Claparede in his 
figures of Lumbricus represents, distinctly, a cuticle, and the cilia 
are indeed so closely set as to give the appearance of a striated 
cuticle. I have in Allolobophora sp. examined a teased portion of a 
living pharynx and have seen the cilia working. 
The following region, the oesophagus, is thin- walled, fairly wide, 
and laterally compressed ; in somite Y it widens out and leads into 
the gizzard. This organ occupies only one somite, the fifth, but it 
pushes backwards the thick septa which bound posteriorly the fifth, 
sixth and seventh somites, so that on a casual examination it would 
appear — especially, probably, on dissection — that the gizzard occupied 
these somites, but by tracing out the septa, it is sufficiently easy to 
determine that it occupies but one somite. 
Behind the gizzard the tubular intestine (or as it is sometimes 
called, the post-ventricular oesophagus) commences ; it is considerably 
narrower than the previous regions, the walls are thinner, the epithelium 
secretes a cuticle, and it is provided with calciferous glands on its course. 
The sacculated intestine commences in segment XIII or XI Y ; 
it is not at all an easy point to be sure of, as the septa behind the 
thirteenth and following somites are extremely thin; they are, too, 
bulged forwards, and are close together, so that the intestine may 
commence in XIY, or even XY, but I believe XIII is the somite 
in which the sacculated intestine commences. There is practically 
no typhlosole. The intestinal epithelium presents (figs. 14, 15), 
