56 LAND PLANARIANS : AN ANCIENT GROUP. [CH. I 



name denotes lives under ground and subsists upon earth- 

 worms as do indeed many of the species, which are for 

 the most part carnivorous. A species in Europe which 

 nourishes itself upon fungi has however been recorded. 

 The two genera Leimacopsis and Polycladus are recorded 

 from the Andes *, and the former at any rate is the type 

 of a group distinct from any of those that have been 

 mentioned. Moseley described from the Philippines the 

 peculiar genus Dolichoplana. Now it will be observed 

 that the bulk of the species belonging to the Geoplanidae 

 are South American and Australian. Only a few range 

 to the north of those land masses. This may be a fact of 

 some importance. The reader will have already made 

 himself acquainted with the division of the earth proposed 

 by Mr Huxley. The Geoplanidse are almost exclusively 

 restricted to his Notogaea; and this restriction agrees 

 with that of certain other ancient forms of terrestrial 

 animals such as the Marsupials. The distinctness of the 

 Oriental region as shown by the land Planarians is also 

 remarkable. It would not of course be remarkable if we 

 were dealing with a modern group ; but the wide range of 

 Geoplana is so far an argument that we are dealing with a 

 fairly ancient group. 



Altogether it seems to be evident that when the land 

 Planarians come to be more extensively known they will 

 yield a highly valuable body of facts ; in the meantime 

 this slight sketch of their distribution may serve to il- 

 lustrate the impossibility of laying down hard and fast 

 regional districts to apply to every group. 



1 Schmarda, Neue wirbellose Thiere, 1861. 



