570 AUSTRALIAN LAND PLANARIANS, 



Brittlebank (5, p. 48) records instances in which he observed 

 land planarians in Victoria, feeding on, in one case, a wood-iouse, 

 and in the other the larva of a beetle. Dendy also found a 

 Geoplana in the act of preying on a beetle, (6, p. 132; 7, p. 68; and 

 9, p. 116). 



Spencer (15, p. 86) speaks of the voracity of land planarians 

 in general, and of G. Spenceri, Dendy, in particular, he having 

 seen this species catch and suck the inside out of a beetle. 



Quite recently ScharfF (13, p. 33), in describing a new European 

 RJiynchod emus of extremely large size, mentions the fact of his 

 finding it feeding upon a snail. A remarkable feature about this 

 species as figured is the unusually far forward position of the 

 apertures. 



For some years past I have myself had numerous opportunities 

 of studying land planarians in a state of nature and in captivity, 

 and I have on very frequent occasions seen them feeding on 

 insects of various kinds, earthworms, slugs, Ptripatus, &c, and 

 one species on another; but I have never seen one attempt to eat 

 vegetable matter of any kind, either fresh or decayed. The 

 suctorial oral tube, while eminently well adapted for imbibing 

 the juices and soft tissues of insects, &c, is not at all suited for 

 the ingestion of vegetable fibre or decayed wood, and I think 

 that there can be no doubt that Moseley's explanation of Darwin's 

 observation is correct. 



Under favourable conditions of moisture and temperature they 

 are able to live for many months without food, but under such 

 circumstances they become sluggish and move about very little. 



Their method of securing their prey is to crawl over it and 

 thus entangle it with the sticky mucus which is freely secreted 

 over the surface of their bodies. The trumpet-like suctorial tube 

 is then protruded from the peripharyngeal aperture and inserted 

 in the captive's body, and the soft contents of the latter quickly 

 transferred to the alimentary canal of the planarian. Even 

 Peripatus, with its active habits and elaborate slime-shooting 

 appliance, falls an easy prey to the larger planarians, and when 

 collected should always be put in a separate box. 



