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classed together as Haplogona, a group which is regarded as 

 standing close to the probably now extinct common progenitor 

 of the Hclicidœ and their close allies, and this view is further 

 emphasised by the world-wide distribution their immense 

 antiquity has enabled them to attain, as representatives are 

 found from the Arctic regions to the Antarctic. In New Zealand, 

 Tasmania, South Austraha, and South Africa its species are found 

 abundantly, and it is the predominant Hehcoid in the Oceanic 

 islands of Polynesia and elsewhere. 



In North America, this weak and ancient race is still flour- 

 ishing and represented by a number of fine and large species 

 which occupy the elevated and desert land between the Mississippi 

 and the Sierra Nevada and other mountain ranges, which so 

 eñectually shut off the more vigorous Helicidian hfe of the 

 Pacific slope. 



In the European districts a few species of small size, as 

 Punctum. pygmcBwn, Pyramidula rupestris, etc., still exist, their 

 reduced size and probably non-competitive habits of life 

 probably assisting to preserve them for a period from extinction 

 there. 



In the Oligochaeta, or earthworms, which have been studied 

 with such brilliant results by Mr. F. E. Beddard and others, 

 we have similar and corroborative evidence of the manifest 

 superiority and dominance of the more recently evolved European 

 group, the Lumhricidœ, and the probable correctness of my 

 views as to the migratory routes by which the earthworms 

 have overspread the world. 



The Lumhricidœ are declared to possess a most remarkable 

 degree of adaptability — shown by their capacity of establishing 

 themselves anywhere and of expelling the native worms of 

 any country, a power they share with the human race and all 

 other organisms of their native region. They prosper in the 

 warm extra-European countries and elsewhere, the differences of 

 chmate offering no obstacle to their prosperity and increase 

 (PI. VIII, fig. 6). 



In gatherings of worms from the cultivated regions of New 

 Zealand, hardly any native worms can now be found, and this 

 is exactly the case in South America. In Austraha, too, the 

 native worms must be sought far away from the settlements. 



