618 



TASMANIAN LAND PLANARIAN S. 



Descriptions of New Species, &c. 



By Thos. Steel, F.L.S., F.C.S. 



(Plate xli.) 



The first naturalist to collect a land planarian in Tasmania 

 was Darwin, who found one species on the island on the occasion 

 of the visit of the Beagle in 1832, and subsequently described it 

 as Planaria Tasmaniana (l, p. 244).* Since then the only- 

 additions to our knowledge of the land planarians of Tasmania 

 have been made by Dendy in 1892-3 in his papers read before 

 the Australian Assoc. Adv. Science and the Royal Society of 

 Victoria, and by Graff (io) who worked on material supplied by 

 Dendy. Disallowing Geoplana balfouri, Graff, as being really 

 synonymous with G. Tasmaitiana (Darwin), and G. Wellington!, 

 Dendy, which is very doubtfully identified by Graff (io, p. 369) 

 from Dendy's description of a single probably immature specimen, 

 which Dendy himself did not venture to identify, we have in 

 the work of these authors a record for Tasmania of 9 species and 

 1 variety. 



In this paper, besides giving an account of the young of a 

 number of species, I redescribe and name the Tasmanian planarian 

 which was identified by Dendy as G. Luctsi, Dendy ; and in 

 addition describe 1 new species and 1 new variety, and record 

 the occurrence of 2 Australian species not hitherto found, thus 

 bringing the known forms up to 12 species and 2 varieties. 



Of these, 6 species and 2 varieties are peculiar to Tasmania, 

 the remainder being also found in Australia. 



• The numbers in brackets refer to the list" of references at end of paper. 



