236 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



Remarks. — This large and handsome Branchipod has not 

 previously been recorded outside of Queensland. Besides other 

 localities it is quite common near Melbourne (Elwood and Ross- 

 town), except when the little rain pools in which they live dry 

 up, such being the case for several months every year. I have 

 never known them to live in the lai-ger swamps that contain 

 water all the year round. 



The original paper of Dr. Richters describing this species from 

 Queensland has apparently been entirely overlooked, for in Pro- 

 fessor Packard's important monograph of the Phyllopods of 

 North America, published seven years later than the above 

 paper,^ in which he gives a list of known species of the family, it 

 is not included, and he remarks that no Branchipodidae occur in 

 Australia, which misstatement has been made since. Sars also 

 has missed the above record in his list of Australian Phyllopoda.^ 



My thanks are due to Mr. T. S. Hall, M.A., for bringing under 

 my notice Richters' paper, and I have no doubt from comparison 

 with his figures and description that the Victorian form speci- 

 fically agrees with it. I have, however, thought it advisable to 

 more fully describe it. The foregoing description and following 

 supplementary remarks have been made after an examination of 

 numerous living specimens. 



Supple/iientary Description. — The males and females li\'e in 

 about equal proportion. They are of graceful form, and, like 

 other Branchipods, swim on their back by the aid of eleven pairs 

 of large, leaf-like appendages, which, as is well known, serve also 

 for respiration, and are kept in rhythmic undulation. When 

 occasion warrants they are able to propel themselves rapidly by 

 strong jerks with their long tail, which is provided at the end 

 with a pair of large feathered appendages. By the movement of 

 the branchial feet a current of water is formed that flows from 

 behind forwards between the two rows of feet, and in this way 

 the food reaches the mouth. 



The trunk or mesosome is somewhat broader than the cephalon, 

 and is formed of eleven segments which are of subequal length 

 and breadth. The tail, or metasome, is formed of nine segments. 



1 Twelfth Annual Report of U.S. Geol. and Geog'. Survey for the year 1878, part i. (1883). 



2 Arch, for Math, og Naturvid, Christiania, xvii., No. 2. 



i 



