28 DESCRIPTIONS OF EARTHWORMS. 



plentifully illustrated memoir he not only published detailed 

 descriptions and figures of his new species , but also of 

 several other allied forms, making thus comparison of the 

 different American species very easy. Though Eisen's dis- 

 covery of Benhamia-species at Miraflores »in a locality to 

 which plants of any kind have rarely if ever been intro- 

 duced directly from foreign country" would indicate that 

 they must be considered as truly endemic, I nevertheless 

 thought it desirable to compare our worms also with the 

 African species, 1°. because there exists a close connection 

 between the fauna's of West- Africa and West-India, 

 2°. because , Paramaribo being a sea-port , our species could 

 have been imported by man's interference, like in many 

 other parts of the world. Thanks the investigations of 

 Michaelsen we know about twenty species of Benhamia 

 from Africa, whose body-length does not exceed 75 mm. ; on 

 comparing them with our worms, B. pallida^) from Togo, 

 appears to be the only species, that shows some resem- 

 blance with them , especially in the feature of the penial 

 setae. Unfortunately the description of this species is 

 rather incomplete , being based on a single indifferently 

 preserved individual. 



Our specimens attain a length of no more than 50 mm. ; 

 the breadth of the body in the clitellar region is about 

 3 mm. The number of segments of a large specimen is 

 133. The colour of the body is greenish , only the cli- 

 tellum and setal areae are whitish. The intersegmental 

 groove between the first and second segment is rather 

 indistinct. The cephalic lobe extends with a roundish 

 prolongation till the half of the buccal segment. The 

 segments behind the clitellum show a circular ridge in 

 the middle, upon which the setae are situated ; the distance 

 between de ventral pairs of setae is a little larger than 

 that between the ventral and dorsal ones. Clitellum saddle- 

 shaped, occupying segments XIII — XX, the anterior and 



1) Archiv f. Naturgesch. 1892, p. 50, tcxttig. B 1 and 2. 



JSotes from the Lieyden ]Museuin, Vol. XXI. 



