742 OBSERVATIOXS ON SOME AUSTRALIAN POLYCH-ETA, 



This very beautiful species is met with occasionally in trawling 

 at depths of a few fathoms in Port Jackson. It is extremely 

 fragile, and it is difficult to preserve specimens intact for examina- 

 tion. Though in general appearance unlike most species of Syllis, 

 it presents, nevertheless, all the characters of that genus. 



Syllis Sciimardiana. N. sp. 

 Plate LI., figs. 4-8. 



The colour of this small species is light reddish yellow ; the eyes 

 reddish brown. The dorsal surface is mottled with reddish brown, 

 leaving on each segment three light spots, of which the outer pair 

 sometimes have a dark dot in their centre. The length is 

 fths of an inch ; the breadth ^th. of an inch. There are 75 

 segments. The body is broadest about the middle of its lengthy 

 tapering towards each end. The proportion of the breadth of the 

 segments to the length is on an average nearly as 4 to 1. 



The head is prominent, I'ounded, a little broader than long ; its 

 dorsal surface has two rounded elevations on which the eyes are 

 situated. The palpi are longer than the head, widely separated 

 except close to the base. The anterior pair of eyes are very 

 slightly larger than the posterior, rounded, situated nearer to 

 the base of the lateral tentacles than to the posterior border of the 

 head ; the posterior pair are oval, with the long axis oblique, 

 situated behind and internal to the larger pair. The median 

 tentacle is about three times as long as the head, and consists of 

 twenty-seven joints. It is inserted by a constricted base rather 

 behind the posterior pair of eyes and close to the posterior border 

 of the head. The lateral tentacles are very slightly shorter than 

 the median and have twenty-five joints. They are attached 

 immediately in front of the anterior pair of eyes. There ai-e two 

 pairs of peristomial tentacles — that situated nearest the dorsal side 

 the longest, longer than the middle prsestominal tentacle. 



The parapodia are short, but divided into a neuropodial and a 

 notopodial portion. The latter contains five or six stout, simple 

 acicula. one rr more ot which may be obscurely bidentate at the 



