18 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



lies by the side of the Mary River, and where I had been told 

 that Ceratodus was to be had in abundance. Here I determined 

 to stay and began at once to make inquiries. To my disappoint- 

 ment I found that no one at the hotel knew anything about the 

 animal but I wandered forth in quest of information. The river 

 itself was dirty with the washings from the mines, and looked 

 anything but promising ; however, I made for some miserable 

 huts on the outskirts occupied by Chinese and after a little 

 trouble found a fisherman amongst them. This individual was 

 decidedly apathetic but after some time said that he might or 

 might not be able to catch me a few. Wandering along by the 

 river I began to feel rather as if I were searching for a needle in a 

 haystack. However, I learnt that the fish certainly were to be 

 caught, though some few miles away, but that there was no chance 

 whatever of getting assistance from any blacks, simply because 

 there were not any in the neighbourhood, and at that time 

 I thought their assistance indispensable. It was late in the 

 afternoon and I wandered on by the river searching for plan- 

 arians and earthworms. Amongst the former I secured two 

 specimens of a beautiful new species, to which Dr. Dendy has 

 given the name of Geoplana reyina and also specimens of the 

 almost cosmopolitan form, Bipalium kewense, and of Geoplana 

 ccerulea, a form common in New South Wales, rare in Victoria, 

 and very abundant indeed in Queensland. This was, I believe, 

 the first time on which land planarians had been collected in 

 Queensland — not that there was any difficulty in finding them, 

 but that no one had taken the trouble to look before. Amongst 

 earthworms, I collected for the first time for myself a true peri- 

 choete — that is, one in which the little setae, or bristles, form a 

 complete circle round each segment of the body. In all our 

 Victorian forms, without exception, there is a break in the mid- 

 dorsal and ventral lines where the setae are absent. True peri- 

 chsetes do not appear to come further south than the north of 

 New South Wales. Under the logs also were specimens of a 

 common Queensland worm, Cryptodrilus purpureus; of a new 

 species of perichaete worm, P. gympinna ; together with three 

 species of frogs — Pseudophryne bibronii, P. australis, and 

 Limnodynastes tasmaniensis. 



During the evening I had the opportunity of talking to one or 

 two who were well acquainted with the country, and was Strongly 

 advised to go on without delay to the Burnett River. I deter- 

 mined that this would be the wisest course to adopt and 

 accordingly packed up next morning and after an hour or two's 

 stroll round Gympie, during which I did a large amount of log- 

 rolling with but scanty success, owing to the extreme dryness of 

 the country, once more took train northwards towards Mary- 

 borough. I spent the night at a little wayside inn where con- 



