THE BIONOMICS OF ENGLISH OLIGOCH^ETA 109 



new to science or to Britain. Among these was a fragile 

 creature flourishing in alga at Ecclesbourne, near where the 

 little stream falls into the sea. About a dozen specimens were 

 collected and taken home for examination. These, however, 

 perished almost immediately, before I was able to prepare a 

 description. It was necessary, therefore, to get a fresh supply 

 if possible, and preserve them forthwith. This was done, and 

 notes were taken both of the living and the preserved forms. 

 In no case was an adult specimen to be found, and for the 

 present one is obliged to speak cautiously ; but the evidence 

 clearly pointed to a new species of British Oligochseta, and the 

 creature has been named provisionally Allurus mollis. Just as 

 the dominant type has driven some species to the Alps and 

 others to the borderlands of Wales and Ireland, so it is possible 

 that in this case a tender form has been compelled to find refuge 

 in algae, to take to the boats indeed, just as the Tanka people 

 on the Chinese rivers have done in escaping from the oncoming 

 Celestials of more robust and over-mastering character. 



As a final illustration of the extent to which variation may 

 run (without alluding to internal structure and the work of 

 Woodward, Bateson, and others), one may take that most poly- 

 morphic of all Allolobophoras, Eisenia veneta Rosa. Its history 

 is one of great interest, and may be read in the pages of Rosa 

 and in my own contributions to annelid study. I first found it 

 many years ago in Dr. Scharff's garden, Dublin, and named it 

 A. kibernica, not knowing that it had also been found in Venice. 

 In March of this year I found it again in Dublin, in a neighbour- 

 ing locality. After the lapse of some years a second British 

 form turned up at Oxford, which I named Tepidaria. This has 

 not yet been found elsewhere, so far as I am aware ; but it is 

 a striking variety. I failed to obtain it again during a recent 

 visit to the Oxford Botanic Garden. In 1909, while collecting 

 in some gardens at Malvern, I came across two new forms, one 

 of which was very robust (E. robusta Friend), while the other 

 was like a dendrobene (E. dendroida Friend). A variety found 

 in Cornwall has not yet been named, but Southern has taken a 

 further form in Ireland which is similar to Michaelsen's variety 

 zebra, and yet another variety is named hortensis. It is such 

 facts as these which make the study of our Earthworms full of 

 interest to the biologist. They are but samples of the kind of 

 material which an extended investigation has enabled one to 



