Benham. — Tico Neiv Svecies of Leech in N.Z. 185 



it has a thick wall, chiefly of connective tissue (staining blue in 

 picronigrosin). In it is the usual coil of germ-cells, the true 

 ovary or germarium. This " egg-cord " consists of very minute 

 cells, only a few of which exhibit the characters of ova. I imagine, 

 from this fact, and from the unusu^illy short extent of the sac, 

 that the ova have recently been discharged, and that when fully 

 developed the sac would be longer. 



The sac narrows to form a duct, which opens to the exterior 

 in common with its fellow, at the hinder part of somite xii. 



Hirudo mauiana, n. sp. 



The opportunity of studying this, the second species of 

 Gnathobdellid leeches to be recorded as occurring in New 

 Zealand, I owe to Mr. H. Suter, who sent me nine specimens. 

 They were obtained by Mr. Alfred Suter in water pumped up 

 from a depth- of 28 ft. in the grounds of the Farmers' Co-opera- 

 tive Freezing - works, at Penrose, Auckland. Probably, how- 

 ever, they are not truly subterranean, but live normally in 

 some swampy region, or in ponds in the neighbourhood, and 

 had been carried in some way into the well. The first indivi- 

 dual to be obtained was thoughtfully sent to me alive, in 

 October, 1905, and I was able to make a careful study of the 

 coloration. 



Colour. — The greater part of the dorsal surface is a dark 

 olive-brown, paler and greener along the median line. This 

 median band is bordered on each side by a linear streak of light 

 yellowish-green. On each side the dark ground-colour is tra- 

 versed by a well-defined band of light dusky-yellow, about mid- 

 way between the median band and the margin of the body, which 

 is reddish-orange. Except for the two admedian linear streaks 

 and the marginal orange, there are thus seven nearly equal 

 bands of colour — five dark and two yellow (fig. 6). The latter 

 taper at each end, ceasing anteriorly at the level of the last pair 

 of eyes, and posteriorly a few annuli in front of the sucker. The 

 ventral surface is a uniform orange-red, which passes upwards 

 round the margin on to the upper surface to form the marginal 

 band just mentioned. 



This individu^al was killed by adding alcohol gradually to 

 the water, so that it retained its extended condition : it was then 

 preserved in formol. When examined a year later the olive- 

 brown had become a dark-grey, the admedian pale - greenish, 

 lines are now much paler — in fact, a dirty-white — and the con- 

 spicuous yellow bands are also dirty-white. The sucker is dark 

 along the middle, but pale-yellowish along the right and left 



