54 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



Nothing of the habits of this species is known, nor even its 

 original Lome. It is generally understood to have been introduced 

 with plants from abroad. Specimens have generally been found 

 in hothouses of low temperature, and Professor Moseley, basing 

 on temperature, suggests Japan or China as the country of its 

 origin. 



The specimens which I have the pleasure to place before you 

 were taken at Woodside Gardens, Paisley, where this species has 

 been noticed less or more plentifully during the last three or four 

 years. This, I believe, is the first record of its appearance in 

 Scotland. 



I have been able to take the following observations, hitherto 

 unrecorded, regarding this species : — It is of nocturnal habits j 

 any captures that are made during the day seem to be of animals 

 in a dormant condition, as they are curled up in what seems a 

 resting position. Hitherto heat has been looked upon as essential 

 to its existence, but that is not, or at least does not seem, necessary, 

 as specimens have been taken in an open border when the ground 

 was frost-bound and the temperature considerably below freezing 

 point. At the same time they are generally taken in a house 

 the temperature of which ranges between 40° and 45° Fahr. They 

 are not injurious to plants as far as known, and are lovers of 

 moist places. It is certain, I believe, that they breed at Woodside, 

 specimens having been taken from two inches upwards, but as yet 

 I have been unable to gather any particulars regarding their food 

 or the production of their young. 



With regard to the original home of this species, I may state 

 that a large consignment of plants was received direct from Algiers 

 in the year 1890 — previous to the appearance of this planarian. 

 One, if not more, of the places recorded in England received 

 plants from Kew, and it is thought that it may have been trans- 

 ferred with these consignments ; but that is not the case with the 

 Scottish record, no plants having been received from that source. 



