OCR Text |
Show 696 MR. F. E. BEDDARD ON N E W [DeC 20, probably, and Allurus certainly, have the male pores situated very far forwards, nearly as far forwards as in Moniligaster; this he holds renders it unnecessary to lay any particular stress upon the forward position of the pores in question, in Moniligaster, as an indication of affinity with the lower Oligochaeta. Granting this for the moment, it seems a little unfair that Rosa should use precisely the same character as an indication of affinity with the Lumbricidae, especially with the two genera just mentioned. On p. 386 of his memoir, however, he states, as a feature of resemblance between Moniligaster and these genera, the fact that in both the male pores are in front of the oviducal pores. As to the forward position of the clitellum in Moniligaster, Rosa quotes the instance of Buchholzia appendiculata, where the organs of the body are two segments in front of the usual position which they occupy in allied species. I do not think from what we now know that it will prove to be the case that in any species of Moniligaster the clitellum is so far back as segments xii.-xv., a position which, as Rosa justly points out, is after all not so very different from what we find in other undoubted Earthworms. The new facts contained in the present paper do not furnish any material for a renewed discussion as to what group of Earthworms comes nearest to the Moniligastridse: the only pronounced feature in which they resemble any Earthworms is the presence of several gizzards lying at the end of the oesophagus; but we now know that this character is found in several genera belonging to at any rate three families, viz., Pleionoyaster, Bilimba, and the three Eudrilids Hyperiodrilus, Heliodrilus, and Libyodrilus. This character, therefore, must be neglected as a mark of affinity. V. Family EUDRILID^E. 14. Eudriloides durbanensis. The division of the Eudrilidae into genera requires some further consideration ; we are at present but imperfectly acquainted with a large proportion of the many forms recently described from tropical Africa by Dr. Michaelsen ; and as there are doubtless a large number of forms awaiting discovery, it is also premature to attempt any systematic revision of the family. I therefore refer provisionally the species, which I describe in the present paper, to the genus Eudriloides, without pretending that it may not ultimately be transferred to some other genus ; I give at the end of the description my reasons for this course. The worms which I describe here were obtained from Kew Gardens ; they had reached those gardens from Durban, Natal; I preserved them in alcohol after killing them in weak spirit. There were five specimens, of which two were studied by longitudinal sections, the others examined in glycerine. The species is a small one; the length is about two inches by a breadth of not more than two millimetres ; the worms are therefore long and slender. During life the colour was red-a colour owing, of course, to the absence of |