246 REMARKS ON AN INTRODUCED SPECIES OP LAND-PLANARIAN, 



specimens on the public asphalt footpaths at Stanmore. Shortly 

 after Mr. Whitelegge told me that he too had noticed them on the 

 footpaths at Surry Hills and in Hyde Park, and in the Australian 

 Museum grounds. After this on several occasions I noticed 

 examples on the paths in the Park, and also in Darlinghurst 

 Road ; in the latter locality Mr. Mastei's also one morning counted 

 six specimens dead on the footpath. On again comparing notes 

 with Mr. Whitelegge he told me that on rolling over a cask in the 

 Museum grounds he found twelve specimens, and that on another 

 occasion Mr. Ogilby had found six under a piece of wood. Mr. 

 Haswell also found specimens in the University Grounds ; and 

 quite recently I have received one found under a piece of wood at 

 Marrickville. 



That these planarians should have appeared almost simultane- 

 ously in so many places is probably due to the same cause, but it 

 is not clear whether this was merely a desire to obtain drier 

 quarters, or whether the damp warm weather had tempted them 

 forth in search of each other for reproductive purposes, this 

 possibly being with them, as it certainly is with indigenous 

 planarians, about the time of the breeding season. A small 

 species of slug was very abundant about the same time in similar 

 situations. 



The specimens I saw in Hyde Park had evidently strayed from 

 the enclosure about Capt. Cook's statue, which has been stocked 

 with plants from the Botanic Gardens, where B. Keioense has 

 doubtless obtained a footing. Those I saw elsewhere were, with 

 few exceptions, in the vicinity of gardens, but in one or two cases 

 they must have travelled considerable distances. 



Their appearance on the pavements in the moi-nings in a 

 moribund or dried-up condition — and all that I saw on the asphalt 

 footpaths were in one or other of these states — may have been due 

 to some injurious effect arising from contact with the asphalt, or 

 the planarians may simply have wandered on until they were 

 lost, and injured either by chilling due to the radiation of heat 

 from the pavement towards morning, or by their exposure to the 

 sunlight after dawn. 



