286 Transactions. 



Art. XXXV.^ — Additions to the Terrestrial Isopoda of New Zealand. 

 By Charles Chilton, M.A., D.Sc, F.L.S. 



[Bead before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 1st December, 1909.] 



In the year 1901 I published in the " Transactions of the Linnean Society" 

 an accovmt of the terrestrial Isopoda of New Zealand. Since then nu- 

 merous additional facts have become known, and some additional species 

 have been found ; moreover, during the interval several important works 

 dealing with certain sections of the group have appeared. It seems 

 desirable, therefore, to collect this additional information together for 

 the advantage of future workers. In some of the genera a thorough re- 

 vision of the species is necessary ; but this would entail more time than 

 can be devoted to the matter at present, and I must content myself with 

 merely indicating some of the questions that require solution. For the 

 same reason descriptions of tome new species are held over. 



The list published in 1901 contained twenty-seven species in thirteen 

 genera, only three or four being uncertain species. Included in the Hst, 

 however, were three species which are now known to have been accidentally 

 introduced by man, and which must therefore be omitted from the list of 

 New Zealand species. These are Porcellio scaber, Latr., Metoponorthus 

 pruinosus, Brandt, and Armadillidium vulgare, Latr. Porcellio scaber is 

 extremely common all over New Zealand, and has spread far from inhabited 

 places, though it has not often been found actually in the native bush. Of 

 Metoponorthus pruinosus I (1905, p. 431. and 1906a, p. 64) have had speci- 

 mens only from Rissington, in Hawke's Bay, though a specimen had 

 apparently been gathered in New Zealand before 1847, for it was included 

 in White's list published in that year, and was afterwards described by Miers 

 under the name Porcellio zealandicus ; Armadillidium vulgare is common in 

 the town of Nelson, and I have one specimen from Momit Egmont, and 

 more recently specimens from a garden at Sumner, Canterbury : but neither 

 of the last two species appears to have spread in New Zealand in the same 

 way as Porcellio scaber has done. 



A few additional species have been added to the list of those found in 

 the New Zealand region, from specimens gathered in the subantarctic islands 

 to the south of New Zealand— viz., Scyphoniscus magnus, Chilton, Haplo- 

 phthalmus australis, Chilton, Trichoniscus magellanicus (Dana) ; while Oniscus 

 novce-zealandicB; Filhol, proves to be a separate species of Deto, and not 

 identical with Deto aucklandice, as I previously thought it might be. 



In a paper published at Copenhagen in 1904 Budde-Lund has given a 

 revision of the Spherillonina;, and in the genus Spherillo he includes a large 

 number of species from New Zealand, Polynesia, and elsewhere which were 

 previously included under Armadillo, while he also describes some new 

 species from New Zealand under different genera of the subfamily. I 

 do not fully understand the characters by which Budde-Lund separates 

 Spherillo from Armadillo, and, as there is some doubt whether the name 

 Spherillo is available for the use Budde-Lund makes of it, I give the 

 species under Cubaris, a name that has priority, and has already been used 

 by Stebbing (1900, p. 649) for species which apparently would be placed 

 under Spherillo by Budde-Lund. In his paper Budde-Lund describes 



