The lacrymal is always present, and perforated by a glandular duct.
The upper, wide opening of the duct is attached by elastic, peritoneal lamellae to the hinder margin of the left lung; the middle portion of the duct is glandular and thick-walled, for the deposition of the albumen; it is connected by a short, constricted " isthmus " (where the shell-membrane is formed) with a dilated " uterus " in which the egg receives its calcareous shell and eventual pigmentation.
Bergh (for Lumbricus and Criodrilus), whose figures show a derivation of the entire nephridium from mesoblast, and an absence of any connexion between successive nephridia by any continuous band, epiblastic or mesoblastic. A midway position is taken up by Wilson, who asserts the mesoblastic formation of the funnel, but also asserts the presence of a continuous band of epiblast from which certainly the terminal vesicle of the nephridium, and doubtfully the glandular part of the tube is derived.
In other Polychaetes one or more pairs of similar outgrowths are glandular.
In the aquatic genera the epidermis comes to consist entirely of glandular cells, which are, however, arranged in a single layer.