Dr. Johnston on the Irish Annelides. 305 



XXXVI. — Miscellanea Zoologica. By George Johnston, 

 M.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edin- 

 burgh. 



[With a Plate.] 



[Continued from p. 274.] 



The Irish Annelides. 



I now continue my description of the collection of Irish An- 

 nelides before me *. 



Family Aphroditace^e. 



1. Aphrodita aculeata, Lin. — Strangford Lough, Wm. 

 Thompson, Esq. ; Bangor, Dr. Drummond. 



2. Aphrodita hystrix, Sav. — Aud. and Edw. Litt. de la 

 France, ii. p. 70. pi. 1. fig. 1 — 9. Courtmasherry Harbour, 

 county Cork, Mr. Geo. J. Allman. 



I had previously received a specimen from Mr. Edward 

 Forbes, who dredged it in 20 fathoms water about 4 miles 

 from land on the N.W. coast of the Isle of Man. 



Desc. Body elliptic-oblong, depressed, the back covered 

 with 15 pairs of imbricated naked scales; the sides hirsute 

 and spinous with golden and brown-coloured bristles ; the 

 ventral surface of a dirty blackish-brown colour, covered with 

 a coriaceous tuberculated skin, marked with transverse pa- 

 rallel rugae along the margins, and with a narrow depressed 

 space down the centre. Head small, entirely concealed under 

 the front scales ; eyes very distinct, occipital, pedunculate ; 

 between and above the peduncles there is a short porrect 

 biarticulate antenna, and on one side of the mouth a long 

 awl-shaped ciliated palpus invested with a fleshy sheath at the 

 base. Proboscis large and muscular. Scales large, irregularly 

 heart-shaped, smooth, soft, thin and membranous, with entire 

 even margins, overlapping each other on the median line and 

 behind ; the anterior pair is small, rounder than the others 

 and hidden under those that follow, and the posterior pairs 

 are likewise so much imbricated that the anal ones are almost 

 concealed : they are all attached to a fleshy peduncle and are 

 of a greyish or flesh-colour tinted with brown. Feet 32 pairs ; 

 the anterior and posterior are minute, but they gradually in- 

 * See Annals Nat. Hist. vol. v. p. 168. 



