36 Records of the Indian Museum. [Voi,. XIX, 



the Pearl-banks round Ceylon. During the past few years the 

 Madras Fisheries Department has been making extensive collections 

 of the marine animals occurring on the chank-beds at Tuticorin, 

 in the Gulf of Manaar^ but no specimens of Bchiuroids had ever 

 been obtained. Recently (November, 1918) while on deputation 

 to -the Madras Fisheries for a short time, I was fortunate enough 

 in obtaining two specimens of Thalassema. The specimens were 

 brought up from the bottom by a chank-diver, who found them 

 crawling round the burrows of the chank — Tiirhinella pirum. 

 Lam., about five miles from the mainland. The bottom of the 

 sea in these parts consists of fine sand mixed with some mud and 

 large quantities of dead shells, coral pieces and tubes of Poly- 

 chaete worms. 



The specimens belong to a verj^ interesting new species, which 

 I propose to describe as Thalassema hornelli, associating it with 

 the name of Mr. J. Hornell, F.Iy.S., Director of Fisheries, Madras, 

 to whom I am greatly obliged for making my short stay in the 

 Madras Presidency both interesting and useful. 



Thalassema hornelli, sp. nov. 



The body in this species is elongate, cylindrical; in one of 

 the specimens, owing to contraction at the time of preservation, 

 the posterior end appears of a much less diameter than it actually 

 is in the living specimens. The living individuals showed great 

 powers of expansion and contraction ; in spirit the larger of the 

 two specimens is 8*2 cm. long, while its maximum breadth is 2*1 

 cm. The proboscis is very short compared to the length of the 

 body, and measures 11 cm. in length. The ventral margins of 

 the proboscis are not united with one another even at its base. 

 The whole of the surface of the body is covered over by minute 

 irregularly arranged papillae ; the papillae near the two ends of the 

 body are larger than those in the middle, while the proboscis 

 papillae are very minute. 



Two rather small hooks of a pale yellow colour are present in 

 the normal situation on the ventral surface. The musculature of 

 the body is broken up into nineteen bundles in the middle of the 

 body, but higher up and lower down the muscle-bands become 

 m.ore or less contiguous, and it is not possible to count the bundles. 

 There are five pairs of segmental organs with large funnels ; the 

 lateral margins of the funnels are produced into very long spirally 

 coiled lobes. Of the five pairs of segmental organs the three 

 anterior pairs are rather poorly developed structures, and are 

 situated in front of the insertion of the ventral hooks, while the 

 two posterior pairs are very well-developed with elongated, ovoid 

 vesicles and very long spiral lobes for the funnels. The anal 

 vesicles are well-developed tubular structures reaching to a little 

 more than half the length of the body ; each of the vesicles has 

 three rows of rather large funnels extending over a little more than 

 half the length of the vesicles. The body- wall is very thick at the 

 two ends of the body but much thinner in the middle. 



