NO. 1 HARTMAN : POLYCHAETOUS ANNELIDS 51 



The erratic occurrence of species of Diopatra in large collections is 

 unique. Mcintosh (1885) found none in the large collections of the 

 Challenger Expedition; likewise, there are none given in Ehlers (1887) 

 or Treadwell (1921) for the Florida and West Indian regions. (Some 

 species which Ehlers had referred to Diopatra are members of other ge- 

 nera of onuphids.) There are likewise none in Chamberlin's (1919) ac- 

 count of the Albatross collections. Augener (1906) described one — D. 

 spiribranchis — from the West Indian region, which he (1918) later re- 

 ferred to the older D. cuprea (Bosc). Horst (1922) lists only this one in 

 the West Indian chaetopod fauna. Mcintosh (1910, p. 403) says there 

 are none in the British fauna. 



On the other hand, Kinberg (1865, pp. 559-560) described 7 new 

 species from the collections of the Eugenies Expedition (1851-53), of 

 which 5 are from the Western Hemisphere. Two (D. brasiliensis and D. 

 longicornis) originate from Brazil, 2 {D. arnoena and D. viridis) from 

 the La Plata region, and one (D. splendidissima) from Ecuador. An- 

 other, D. agave Grube (1869, p. 59), was described from Brazil; one, 

 D. rhizophorae Grube (1856, p. 54), from Realejo, Nicaragua; and 

 one, D. chiliensis Quatrefages (1865, p. 342), from Chile. Most of these 

 are so poorly known that they cannot even be compared with other known 

 species. Two others, D. calif ornica and D. ornata, both by Moore (1904 

 and 191 1 ) , originate in California (but the first is believed to be referable 

 to D. splendidissima) , and one, D. cuprea (Bosc) (1802), comes origi- 

 nally from South Carolina. 



D. cuprea (Bosc), the oldest known species in the genus, has been 

 widely reported from the Carolinas, south through the West Indian re- 

 gion to Frazil. It has been redescribed as D. fragilis Ehlers (1869) from 

 South Carolina, as D. variegata Hansen (1882, p. 9) from Brazil, and 

 as D. spiribranchis Augener ( 1906) from the West Indies. D. brasiliensis 

 Kinberg (1865) (not Hansen, 1882) is herein believed to be a distinct 

 species because the anterior hooded hooks are distally tridentate, not bi- 

 dentate. D. splendidissima Kinberg (1865) from Ecuador, to which D. 

 californica Moore is herein referred, and D. ornata Moore are 2 well- 

 known representatives from the American west coast. 



The chaotic state in this group has already been reviewed (Augener, 

 1918, Fauvel, 1933, and others). Most authors have come to employ 

 chiefly the structure of the pectinate (comb) setae for specific diagnosis, 

 smce other characters have been thought to vary more widely intraspecifi- 

 cally than they do interspecifically. Augener (1918, pp. 350-354) con- 

 sidered the species largely on this difference, separating them approxi- 



