PEI AP PLUS AND HALICRYPTOS. 
203 
section. At the apex of the tubules I noticed a little pit ( p .) 
into which opens a very delicate canal (o.) from a flask-shaped 
portion (f.) below, which communicates again with several 
large cells (/*.). 
These details do not appear in objects coloured with carmine, 
and I therefore tried one of the aniline dyes, viz. methyl 
violet, which has been successfully used for a similar purpose 
by Spengel 1 in order to demonstrate the excretory ducts of 
glandular organs in the skin of Echiurus Pallasii. The 
aniline dyes are said to have the property of staining secretions 
very markedly. If this be the case I think I am quite justified 
in regarding these organs as organs of secretion, the cells 
forming the warts having been stained of a deep blue together 
with the flask-shaped portion (fig. 5 ,f.) and the duct, while the 
other hypodermic cells only assumed a very slight bluish tinge. 
Other investigators maintain, on the contrary, that aniline dyes 
cannot be trusted and that their action is very fickle. Never- 
theless another circumstance besides the aniline method seems 
to give the above-stated view an additional support. In the 
spirit specimens the immediate surroundings of the warts were 
thickly covered with a yellowish sticky material, which had to 
be brushed off in order to allow of a more accurate scrutiny. 
The supposition that these organs might be of a secretory 
nature has only been put forward by Ehlers, while Saenger 
maintains that there are no pores at all. Graber 2 believes that 
the investigations of Ehlers are in want of improvement, and 
scorns at the idea of the existence of pores. These “ secretory 
organs ” — if I may venture to call them such — do not exist in 
either PriapulusbicaudatusorHalicryptusspinulosus. 
Horst as well as Daniellsen and Koren do not mention anything 
about them with regard to the former and I have not found 
them in the latter. 
1 Spengel, “Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Gephyreen,” ‘ Zeitschr. f. wiss. 
Zoologie,’ vol. xxxiv, p. 46'L 
2 Graber. loc. cit., p. G3. 
