ANDREWS: ANNULUS VENTRALIS. 
447 
were studied in sections, or else in translucent preparations, and it 
was found that before laying, the recess and the tube of the trumpet 
were always full of sperm and the vestibule full of wax that projected 
more or less as an externally visible plug, but that after laying there 
was but little sperm in the tube though the recess was often still full 
and the vestibule was full of wax that generally still projected from 
the orifice. 
In five females examined in June and July the plug remained though 
there was no sperm left except in one case in which the recess was 
still full. In a female examined a few hours only before laying, the 
trumpet tube was still full of sperm, but in fifteen females examined 
within twenty-four hours after the eggs had been laid, there was very 
little sperm in the tube and in the recess, with the exception of some 
cases in which the recess only was full. In fourteen of these fifteen, 
careful microscopic study revealed more or less sperm on the outer 
surface of the annulus especially along the suture as well as in the 
clefts leading from this suture to the cavity of the trumpet. In the • 
exceptional case*the sperm was all gone as far as study of surface 
views could make out, though some sperm may well have escaped 
notice. In most of these cases the sperm was specially aggregated 
on the anterior face of the promontory at the angle between the middle 
and anterior lines of the zigzag suture (figs. 1, 5, pi. 43), a region 
that may be called the sperm angle since it was so characteristically 
marked by a cluster of extruded sperms in all annuli examined not too 
long after the eggs had been laid. As in figure 27 (pi. 47), the sperms 
here may suggest the appearance of a swarm of bees and even in sec¬ 
tions (pi. 44, fig. 14) the aggregation of sperms at this angle may 
be recognized. This figure shows the angle to be the meeting part 
of both discharging slits, the one from the anterior and the other 
from the middle parts of the trumpet cavity. 
In figure 14 (pi. 44), which is from a female more than twenty-four 
hours after laying, there is present still not only the mass of sperm at 
the angle (pi. 47, fig. 27, shows the surface view of the same specimen) 
but considerable sperm within the recess and some few sperms scatter¬ 
ing out along the posterior slit and the middle slit with a few also at the 
inner end of the wax plug. Yet the tube (pi. 47, fig. 27) is practically 
emptied and strikingly unlike the full tube shown in figure 28 (pi. 47) 
where the sperm mass is dark. 
In another annulus examined twenty-one hours after laying, the 
