356 NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN LAND-PLANARIANS, 



rule, our experience is that, anywhere where logs and pieces of wood 

 are plentiful, provided there is moisture, one may expect to find 

 them. 



Of the nature of their food we know absolutely nothing. 

 Darwin was of opinion that the planarians he observed were 

 vegetable feeders and fed on rotten wood. Schultze and Moseley, 

 however, doubt this, and believe them to be carnivorous, the 

 former having found the palate and jaws of a snail in the 

 alimentary canal of a planarian which he examined. Fritz 

 Miiller also describes a species, G. subterranea, which lives in 

 company with a species of earthworm and he says, ..." the 

 earthworms are devoured, or rather sucked by the planarians. 

 That this was the mode of nourishment, was easy to see, from the 

 colour of the contents of the intestine. But I have also met with 

 Geojylanm which were holding a young Lumhricus with their 

 protruded probosces, and whose intestines were beginning to be 

 filled with fresh blood " (I.e. p. 6). 



It is quite possible that the nature of the food may be difi'erent 

 in ditFerent species. If ours are carnivoi-ous it is difiicult to 

 understand what animals furnish them with food, as often no 

 traces of earthworms or snails are seen where planarians occur, 

 though both may sometimes be found. On the other hand 

 planarians are certainly to be found under logs which are not 

 rotten, and in gardens and bush-houses where there is a scarcity 

 of rotten wood in the immediate vicinity, so that one is led 

 to wonder whether, like earthworms, they are able to extract 

 nutriment from the soil. 



But whether Darwin's opinion be correct or not, we know of no 

 better plan than his of keeping these creatures in confinement, 

 namely, of putting them in a tin or jar with damp rotten wood, 

 and not unnecessarily exposing them to the light. At the present 

 time we have several specimens which have been kept in this way 

 for from one to neai'ly two months, and which seem none the 

 worse for it. Possibly, as has been suggested to us, under these 

 circumstances they may obtain some nutriment from Myxomycetes 

 which probably develop in the damp wood. 



