28 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



of course abounded and in the tree trunks were swarms of 

 native bees. There were not as many logs to turn over as could 

 have been wished for and the ground also was rather too dry 



and sandy. 



We began by digging around the base of the big Bottle Tree, 

 and, after digging some time, came across some large worms, 

 about two feet in length. These differ in habit from any others I 

 have collected. The burrow runs down for perhaps two feet, 

 and then opens into a small chamber. The head end of the 

 worm lies usually a short distance up the burrow, whilst the 

 greater part of its length is twisted into a knotted coil, and lies in 

 the chamber which may also contain one or two smaller, im- 

 mature forms, evidently the young of the larger ones. Under and 

 in rotten logs you often meet with a shortish, stout worm, perhaps 

 six or eight inches in length, which, at first sight, differs very 

 much from the long one. Its body is stiff, and the surface 

 comparatively dry, whilst the other is four or five times its length, 

 the body soft and the surface always very slimy. The short one 

 I met with all along the Burnett River, at Gympie and in the 

 palm district between this and Brisbane, whilst Mr. D. Le Souef 

 collected it at Toowoomba. It is the Cryptodrilus pitrpvreus of 

 Michaelsen and, much though the two differ in habits and appear- 

 ance, the long one is at most a variety of the short, typical form. 

 I only got it in this one spot. In the scrub were some four new 

 species of the same genus, and three new species of a genus 

 (Didymogaster) of which previously only one species had been 

 described from New South Wales, by Mr. Fletcher. Of the 

 typical Victorian genus, Megascolides, to which our large Gipps- 

 land earthworm belongs, I did not find any example in Gayndah, 

 but the Perichsetes were fairly well represented. 



Most of the earthworms were secured under fallen logs and in 

 rotten trunks of the Bottle Tree. In times of drought, the latter 

 are cut down, and, containing a great amount of moisture, are 

 eaten readily by cattle. 



The season was too early for beetles, but, amongst others, I 

 secured specimens in the family Carabidae of Carenum deauratum 

 and bonelli, Eutoma (sp.), Philoscuphus niastersii, and ffomcdosoma 

 hercules; and, in the Paussidte, of Arthropterus (sp.) One species 

 of the genus Leptops, in the Curculionidae, simply swarmed on the 

 bark of the Bottle Trees and some of the upturned logs in the 

 more open parts were alive with the little red form, Lemodes 

 coccinea. 



A short time before leaving for Queensland I had been struck 

 with the presence of curious laterally-placed segmental openings in 

 a very large millipede from Fiji, which Mr. French had kindly 

 forwarded to me. In the Gayndah scrub — where smaller, but 

 still large, millipedes abounded — I was interested to find the 



