MOV 18 1890 



ARTICLE VII.— On an American Earthworm of the Family 

 Phreori/ctidcc. By S. A. Forbes. 



In 1843 W. HofEmeister described in Germany (Wieg- 

 mann's Archiv f . Naturgesch., 1843) a peculiar, long, and very 

 slender worm found in a well, giving it the generic name of 

 Haplotaxis, and, after its discoverer, Menke, the specific name 

 of menkeanus. Two years later this generic name was set 

 aside by the same author for that of Phreoryctes, Haplotaxis 

 having been already used in botany. In 1859 another species 

 of the genus was found, also in Germany, by Schlotthauber 

 and noticed as Geonjdes licJitensteinii (Beitr. z. Helmintho- 

 logie),- — a name which has now given way to that of Phre- 

 ori/des p'li/ormis (Claparede) Vejdovsky, In 1888 the well- 

 known helrainthologist, Beddard, of England, published in the 

 " Annals and Magazine of Natural History " a description of 

 a worm from New Zealand which he assigned with some doubt 

 to this genus under the name of Fhreorydes smithii^ amending 

 at the same time the definition of the genus (especially with 

 reference to the sexual organs) to include this species. These 

 three forms, two from continental Europe and a doubtful one 

 from New Zealand, are thus the only examples of the genus 

 and family hitherto reported. 



In America these worms have been mentioned, previous to 

 the discovery of the present species, only by Minot in the 

 Standard Natural History (1885), where a general illustrated 

 account of the genus is given with the remark that so far as 

 the author knows, it has been found only in Germany. 



In March, 1880, the writer hereof received from a well in 

 McLean county, Illinois, and preserved in alcohol, without 

 study, a very long and slender pale red worm, remarkable for 

 its disposition to coil itself into seemingly inextricable knots. 

 In April of the present year (1890) I received from Mr. 

 G. W. McCluer, Assistant Horticulturist of the Agricultural 

 Experiment Station at Champaign, a thick mass of fine roots 



