Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/483

Rh 1. Lumbricus herculeus, Savigny. $32–37⁄33–36$. Generally distributed. Records wanted for islands all round the coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and some few counties of England.

2. L. papillosus, Friend. $33–37⁄34–37$. First described by me in Proc. Roy. Irish Ac. (3), ii. p. 453. Hitherto found only in Ireland. A well-marked species, but very similar to, and easily mistaken for, the foregoing.

3. L. festivus, Savigny. $34–39⁄35–38$. Though first described in 1826, it was for nearly sixty years lost to view. I rediscovered it in 1890, and named it L. rubescens. This year it has been found again in France also. It is widely distributed, my own records including Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Norfolk, Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Lanarkshire, Down, Dublin, and other counties.

4. L. rubellus, Hoffmeister. $27–32⁄28–31$. Widely distributed. This species is fortunately free from the bewildering array of synonyms attaching to some others.

5. L. castaneus, Savigny. $28–33⁄29–32$. Mr. Beddard remarks truly that this species, like the last, has almost invisible male pores, owing to the absence of a glandular swelling, such as characterizes so many Lumbricidæ. The prostomium has a transverse furrow. It is apparently only to be distinguished from L. rubellus by the different position of the clitellum and the tubercula pubertatis. I should add, "and, as a rule, by the marked difference in their relative sizes, and the tendency of this species to crawl backwards." By an error in the ciphers, Beddard's 'Monograph' makes castaneus four times as long as rubellus (500 mm. to 120), whereas it should be half the length (50 or 60 mm. to 120); the former being ordinarily two or three inches long, and the later (rubellus) about five.

I may here point out an interesting feature in connection with this genus. In 1896 Dr. Ribaucourt described a new Swiss species (L. studeri), specimens of which reached me from Normandy just after the name had been adopted. This species filled up a gap in the chart which he had previously drawn up, and enabled us to set forth the regular succession of segments bearing the clitellum. The plan now stands as follows:—