NEW ZEALAND. 279 



bird as tearing away the dead wood of trees in search of insects, 

 and appearing to replace to some extent in its habits in New 

 Zealand, the totally absent Woodpecker. 



The New Zealand Peripatns (P. Novce Zealanclice) is abundant 

 near Wellington amongst dead wood, and I had 40 or 50 

 specimens brought to me as the result of a day's search in the 

 Hutt Valley. As in the case of the Cape of Good Hope species, 

 the males are much less abundant than the females. 



In essential structure and habits the animal closely resembles 

 the South African species. It is distinguished by having fewer 

 pairs of feet, viz., 15 instead of 17. The females all contained 

 young although it was mid-winter. 



Land Planarian worms are also pretty common near Welling- 

 ton. In their anatomical structure, these New Zealand species 

 are more nearly allied to South American forms of the genus 

 Geoplana than to the Australian Land Planarians. These latter 

 belong to a special genus, Camoplana, which has affinities with 

 the genus Bliyncliodemus of India and the Cape of Good Hope.* 



Mr. W. T. Locke Travers, F.L.S., to whom I am indebted for 

 much kindness and scientific information during my stay at 

 Wellington, brought me specimens of Peripatus N. Zealandice, and 

 also of Land Planarians, together with the egg capsules of the 

 latter, which were hitherto unknown. 



They are spherical in form, of about the size of sweet-pea 

 seeds and of a dark brown colour. The capsules have a tough 

 chitinous wall, and contain four or five young Planarians each. 

 The production of these capsules by the Land Planarians I 

 regard as further evidence in favour of the affinity of these 

 worms to the leeches, on which I have dwelt elsewhere.t 



* Captain F. W. Hutton informs me that, as far as he knows, the 

 genus Bipalium does not exist in New Zealand. His assertion that it did 

 exist there in his well-known and admirable paper, " On the Geographical 

 Eelations of the New Zealand Fauna," Trans. New Zealand Inst, Vol. V., 

 1872, p. 227, was due to imperfect determination of the genus in the 

 case of the species of Geoplana of the locality. 



f H. N. Moseley, " On the Anatomy and Histology of the Land 

 Planarians of Ceylon." Phil. Trans. 1875, p. 148. Also "Notes on the 

 Structure of Several Forms of Land Planarians." Quart. Journal, Micro. 

 Sci., Vol. XVII, p. 275. 



