602 NOTES ON AUSTRALIAN EARTHWORMS, 



distribution, and it is not unlikely that the large, as yet unde- 

 scribed, worms known to occur in Queensland and on the Manning, 

 to which reference has already been made, also belong to it. 



Another of the new species (Cyptodrilus mediterreus ) inhabits 

 the north-western interior of this colony, my specimens having been 

 found on the banks of the River Darling between Bourke and 

 Brewarrina. No species has hitherto been I'ecorded from so far 

 inland as this ; and its occurrence is of interest as showing that 

 the dry interior, at any rate in proximity to rivers, is not destitute 

 of earthworms, though remote from them, as far as I can learn at 

 pi'esent, worms seem to be very scarce or are entirely wanting. 



Owing to the large size of the Tasmanian and the largest G-ipps- 

 land worms, and to their very favourable condition for examina- 

 tion — the breeding functions being in abeyance — what I take to 

 be the true testes were found Avithout any difficulty ; and subse- 

 quently, knowing what to look for, similar bodies were recognised 

 in the smaller species (doubtfully in the Cryptodrilus) though in 

 these in all the specimens examined the testes wei'e obscured by 

 masses of spermatozoa crowding the somites which contain them, 

 whereas in the largest worms these segments were clean and 

 •empty. In the Tasmanian Notoscolex, of which I had the oppoi'- 

 tunity of examining fresh specimens, the testes are two pairs of 

 small cellular masses, each made up of an inner solid portion 

 attached at one point to the mesentery, and of an outer portion 

 consisting of numerous short radiating filaments. In the Gipps- 

 land worms they were evidently of a similar character though, in 

 the specimens dissected, flattened and squeezed out of shape owing 

 to violent contraction. The testes are in segments x and xi, 

 attached low down to the posterior faces of the mesenteries 

 between ix and x, and x and xi, corresponding in position with the 

 ovaries in xiii, each pair situated opposite to, in front of, and in 

 all the specimens dissected quite free from, the pair of ciliated 

 rosettes in the same segment. 



A re-examination of the other Australian species will probably 

 ■show that a similar ai'rangement obtains in all of them. The 

 bodies referred to with some doubt in my previous descriptions as 



