NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN EARTHWORMS. Part IV. 

 By J. J. Fletcher, M.A., B.Sc. 



Quite recently through the kindness of Messrs. R. T. Baker, 

 Alex. Morton, and H. J. Fletcher, I have received most valuable 

 additional material enabling me in this paper to give a pi-eliminary 

 account of six new species of earthworms, of which four are from 

 Gippsland, Victoria, one is from Tasmania, and one from New 

 South Wales. Two of these especially comprise individuals of such 

 fine and robust proportions as to present very favourable subjects 

 for detailed examination. At present I merely give diagnoses of 

 the species, such as I hope will enable them to be satisfactorily 

 identified, reserving a fuller account of them until I come to 

 review the whole. This course, I think, advantageous because 1 

 have not yet exhausted my stock of material, and certain charac- 

 ters — for instance those of the segmental organs, calciferous 

 glands, spermathecse — which, when only a few species had been 

 examined, seemed likely to furnish characters of importance in 

 discriminating genera, present, as more species come under notice, 

 such more or less considerable variations within the limits of a 

 single genus as to make it advisable to refrain from generalizations 

 and detailed comparisons until a genei'al knowledge has been 

 gained of as many species as possible. 



Three of the new species — two from Gippsland and one from 

 Tasmania — are referable to the genus Notoscolex, of which two 

 species, both from New South Wales, have been hitherto described. 

 Now that it is shewn to extend to Tasmania and Victoria, and 

 comprising as it does the largest and finest Australian earthworms 

 yet recorded — with the exception of Megascolides australis of 

 McCoy — it bids fair to rank as one of our most characteristic 

 genera. Further search will probably show it to be of still wider 



