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Show 48 MR. F. E. BEDDARD ON AN [Jail. 20, As regards the last-named species, I wish to remark thatTemminck was the first to separate P. smarugdonotus from its allies, and that it ought to remain under his name (amended). The " Taleve" or "Poule Sultane" of BufFon, upon which the terms madagascariensis and chloronotus were subsequently founded, is a composite species composed of P. cceruleus and P. smaraydonotus, and these names should therefore not be adopted. The following papers were read :- 1. On an Earthworm of the Genus Siphonogaster from West Africa. By F R A N K E. B E D D A R D , M.A., Prosector to the Society. [Received January 6, 1891.] The Authorities of the Royal Gardens, Kew, have kindly forwarded to me some weeks since a box of Earthworms and castings from West Africa. The worms were preserved in spirit and had been sent to Kew by His Excellency Sir A. Moloney, K.C.M.G., Governor of Lagos ; they were collected in the Yoruba country, which lies to the north of Lagos. A recent number of the ' Kew Bulletin'1 contains a very noteworthy paper by Mr. Alvan Millson, Assistant Colonial Secretary of Lagos, upon the habits of these Earthworms, which he had himself collected and observed. Unfortunately the state of preservation of the worms was not good, but I have nevertheless been able to ascertain the genus to which they belong, and to decide that they probably form a new species of that genus. They are evidently referable to a very remarkable African genus, Siphonogaster, which has been quite lately described by Leviusen2. His description, although necessarily (through the imperfect preservation of the specimen) incomplete, enables me to describe my species as new. I name it Siphonogaster millsoni, after Mr. Alvan Millson. The most striking character of S. cegyptiacus, which is illustrated in the plate accompanying Herr Levinsen's paper (op. cit. pi. vii. figs. 1, 2), is afforded by two appendages which are attached to the ventral side of the body upon the xvith or xviitb segment. These appendages are of considerable size, nearly one quarter of the length of the entire worm. Siphonogaster millsoni has the same appendages, which are very much smaller, though the worm itself appears to be longer. The largest specimen which I examined measured about 14 inches 1 ' Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information,' no. 46, Oct. 1890, pp. 238-244. 2 " O m to nye Regnormslaegter fra Aegypten," Vidensk. Meddel. fra den Naturh. Foren. i Kjobenhavn, 1889, p. 319. |
