No. 1. — • The Palolo Worm, Eunice viridis {Gray). 

 By W. McM. Woodworth. 



The Palolo worm 1 first became known from the Samoan Islands, 

 where it attracted the attention of the missionaries because it was eaten, 

 prized and sought for by the natives, and because it appeared periodically 

 in certain localities in enormous numbers, and for a few hours only, and 

 because it made its appearance almost invariably in the months of October 

 and November, and always during a quartering of the moon, and was not 

 seen again until the following year under precisely the same conditions. 

 It further became known that the November crop was vastly larger than 

 that of October, and that all " Palolo" were headless. 



The earliest published description of the " Palolo " is that by 

 J. E. Gray (1847), based on material sent to the British Museum by the 

 Rev. J. B. Stair, a missionary in the Samoan Islands. Gray placed it 

 near to the Arenicolidae and gave it the name Palola viridis. It was 

 figured by Macdonald (1858), and although his figures are most accurate, 

 the so-called head is that of a Lysidice, as was pointed out by Elders 

 (1868), who renamed it Lysidice viridis. The first extended account was 

 written by Collin (1897) as an appendix to Kramer's earlier work on 

 Samoa. Collin, with previous writers, considered the " Palolo " to be the 

 posterior part of a Lysidice, a few heads of which had, from time to time, 

 been taken with the " Palolo " at the ' fishing ' season, and as no other 

 annelid heads were taken, and all " Palolo " were headless, it was natural, 

 for want of better evidence, to ascribe the " Palolo " to the genus Lysi- 

 dice.' 2 For thirty years it was ascribed to that genus, and Macdonald's 



1 In the Fijian Islands the worm is called " Bololo," pronounced Mbololo by the 

 natives. In the course of the present paper I shall use the Samoan name Palolo, 

 for it was in the Samoan Islands that it was first heard from and its true history 

 became known. When the name is printed " Palolo," i. e. in quotation marks, 

 I refer to the headless, epitokal, free-swimming portion of the worm. Different 

 writers have spelled it Pulolo and Palola. It has also been called the " Fiji 

 Worm." 



2 Quartrefages (1858) calls it Lysidice palola. 



