Benham. — Notes on New Zealand Polychaeta. 393 



and form, when fiilly expanded, a large hood or collar, which nearly 

 reaches to the tip of the palps, and hides the base of the everted pharynx. 



My friend Mr. T. D. Adams, whom I consulted as to a suitable prefix 

 • to Nereis which would indicate this peculiarity, suggested the Greek word 

 ckeilos, a lip. This great lip is not the only feature which marks it out 

 from other species of Nereis. It is accompanied by peculiarities in the 

 form of the parapodia and in the possession of rather exceptional chaetae 

 in the ventral bundle of the posterior feet, as has been recently pointed 

 out by L. N. G. Ramsay,* which I had already noted in my MS. account. 

 It seems to me that these features warrant the creation of a new generic 

 name to mark it off from the various other genera into which the old 

 genus Nereis, sensu latu, has. been divided. 



In my account of the '" Endeavour " specimen I have described the 

 species fully, and have indicated the similarity to and differences from 

 the Cheilonereis cyclurus of the eastern shores of the Pacific. At the time 

 I wrote the account of the " Endea-vour " specimens I had not seen 

 Ramsay's paper. He, like myself, would unite N. shishidoi I^ukaf with 

 N. cyclurus. 



It will suffice here to note the general coloration of the living worm. 

 The ground-tint is a light chocolate-brown, with a pinkish tint, due no 

 doubt to the blood-vessels in the body-wall ; but each segment is traversed 

 near its anterior margin by a narrow cross-bar of white, which extends 

 outwards on to the upper surface of the foot. The head, its appendages, 

 the cirri, and the lobes of the parapodia are brown. But in the mature 

 epitokous female, filled with eggs, the colour is very different. It is slaty- 

 blue, owing to the blue eggs, which fill the cavity of the body and of the 

 parapodia, and so distend the body-wall that its brown pigmentation is 

 obscured by the blue eggs seen through it. In alcohol this blue colour of 

 the eggs changes to brown, while in formalin it turns yellow. 



The size of the worm when alive is about 8 in. — i.e., 200 mm. — which 

 shrinks to 175 mm. when preserved. Its breadth in this state is greatest 

 at the 8th segment, where it measures 10 mm., or, including the feet, 17 mm. 

 From this point backwards it decreases in diameter. 



The body is flat; the parapodia are relatively large and high, and are 

 remarkable for the great size of the lamelliform expansions not only of 

 the various lobes, but also of the whole upper surface of the foot, so that 

 the dorsal cirrus is carried upwards and outwards in a notch in a lamella 

 which is higher than the rest of the foot, and which increases relatively 

 towards the hinder end. 



Fam. Sternaspidae. 



Sternaspis scutata Ranzani. 



S. thalassemoides Otto ; ? S. princeps Selenka. 



Hitherto the only specimens of SternaspisX which have been recorded 

 from the sea around New Zealand are the two individuals described by 

 Selenka under the title S. princeps, from Station 179 of the " Challenger " 

 Expedition, which is situated due east of East Cape ; they were obtained 

 from a depth of 700 fathoms. To this species I allude later on. 



* Proc. Zool. Soc, 1914, p. 237. 



t Izuka, Journ. Coll. Sci. Imp. Univ. Tokyo, vol. xxx, 1912, p. 177. 

 J A figure of this peculiar Annelid may be seen in the Cambridge Natural History 

 Museum. 



