114 EARTHWORMS AND THEIR ALLIES [ch. 



section the earthworm inhabitants of larger and 

 smaller tracts of continuous land such as the African 

 continent, which will serve as an excellent example 

 wherewith to test the facts and inferences. 



And as a ' control ' we can compare this continent 

 with the very different continent of Europe. 



As an excellent instance, because of the certitude 

 of specific and in most cases of generic distinctions, 

 we may take the Eudrilidae as illustrative of the 

 facts that are to be considered in the present section. 

 That family consists, as will be remembered, of 33 

 genera at most, which have the following more exact 

 range on the African continent. The genus Eudri- 

 loides occurs in British and German East Africa and 

 has been met with as far south as Mosambique and 

 even Durban, in which latter locality it has been 

 thought that it is really an accidentally introduced 

 stranger. Platydrilus is limited to eastern equatorial 

 Africa, thus not having quite the range of Eudri- 

 loides. 



The small genera (that is small in numbers of 

 species) Relthrodrilus, Bogertia, Megachaetina, Meta- 

 drilus, Notykus have the same limitation of range as 

 the last genus. Metschaina has a wider range from 

 tropical North East to lake Tanganyika. Stuhlmannia 

 has a wider range still being found as it is in the 

 Tanganyika district, in tropical North East Africa, 

 and in British and German East Africa near the 



