BY THOS. STEEL. 



569 



less favourable districts. Perhaps conditions of moisture also 

 favour the good land, for fertile soil usually retains moisture 

 better than that which is poor, and so preserves better during 

 dry weather the conditions necessary for the existence of land 

 planarians. During wet weather they are to be met with under 

 leaves, and even crawling about in the open in daylight, and in 

 lurking places less secure than those afforded by the shelter of 

 logs, but in a general way the collector must rely on the logs, as 

 it is under them he will meet with the largest proportion of his 

 finds. Several species favour shady gullies, but as a rule few will 

 be met with on land which is very damp or swamp}'. Some 

 species burrow freely and seem as much at home in the soil 

 associated with earthworms as under logs. In Fiji my brother, 

 Mr. F. W. Steel, F.C.S., found Rhynchodemus scriptus and 

 Geoplana trifasciata, mihi, burrowing in a compost heap, and he 

 has recently sent me from Yarraville, near Melbourne, a number 

 of specimens of G. sanguinea, Moseley, which he found in the soil 

 while digging his garden. I have myself also met with the same 

 species in a similar situation in the suburbs of Sydney. 



Several naturalists have recorded their observations on the 

 food of these worms. Darwin, who kept some specimens in 

 captivity, found that they increased in size without access to an}' 

 food save some decayed wood, and from this he suspected that 

 they fed upon this substance (1, p. 242). 



Moseley (3, p. 112) suggests that the increase in size noted by 

 Darwin was really due to cannibalism, and quotes the evidence 

 of Max Schultze, who examined the digestive tract of a Geoplana 

 and found no trace of vegetable matter, but only the palate and 

 jaws of a snail. Moseley further quotes Fr. Muller and Leidy, 

 the former of whom found a blind species named Geobia sulter- 

 ranea, Fr. Mull., in Brazil, living in the burrows of an earthworm 

 on which it preyed, while the latter observer fed a Rhynchodemus 

 on house flies. Finally, Moseley himself carefully examined 

 sections of four species of Ceylon land planarians without in any 

 case detecting a trace of vegetable matter in the intestines. 

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