322 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vol. X, 



names are given in connection with the various species for the 

 trouble they have taken in supplying me with the material on which 

 the present paper is based ; I must especially mention L. Bishambar 

 Das, M.Sc, Assistant Professor of Biology in this college; m}' 

 pupil Baini Parshad, B.Sc, at present Alfred-Patiala Student in 

 Zoology in the Punjab University; and my laboratory assistant 

 Md. Ibrahim. 



It will perhaps be convenient to mention first the more 

 interesting results of a general nature. 



Having regard to the general facts of distribution of the 

 NaididaCj it is neither surprising to find two new species of well- 

 known genera {Nats raviensis, Naidium minutum) , nor to meet with 

 forms which are specifically identical with those of Europe {Devo 

 limosa, Aulophorus furcatus). The two Enchytraeidae also belong 

 one to an already known and one to a new species ; the records are 

 interesting, because the list of Indian Enchytraeidae grows very 

 slowly; indeed with the exception of a form described by Beddard, 

 of which the genus is doubtful, only one species {Enchytraeus 

 indicus, 12) of this family has so far been found. Enchytraeus 

 harurami^ of which an account is given below, is noteworthy as 

 being one of the few Enchytraeids in which sperm-sacs have so far 

 been described. In the genus Mesenchytraeus they are present, as 

 is well known, and have the same relations as in the Naididae ; 

 Eisen apparently records them (in a paper which I am unfortu- 

 nately unable to consult) in some species of the genus Enchytraeus, 

 though they are certainly not present in all (c/. Welch, 17). In 

 the present species the sacs are of the nature of the testis-sacs 

 seen, for example, in Ocnerodrilus (0.) occidentalis (to mention 

 only another worm in the present collection), not of the seminal 

 vesicles of the Naididae; each consists of a peritoneal membrane 

 in the form of a bag, which surrounds the testis (but not, as for 

 example in Eutyphoeus, the funnel also), and wdthin which the 

 sexual cells, ripening and freeing themselves from their attach- 

 ment, undergo the change into sperm-morulae. Exactly how the 

 sexual cells escape, and as ripe spermatozoa find their way to the 

 mouth of the funnels, is not evident in the preparations of the 

 present form. 



Perhaps the most curious, though not the most important, 

 fact recorded is the occurrence of the genus Microscolex in a 

 remote spot in the extreme north of India, 700 miles in a direct 

 line from the sea. The species (M. phosphoreus) is widespread ; 

 its original home is probably (Michaelsen, 7) in the temperate zone 

 of South America, whence, with other representatives of the 

 genus, it has been carried by the drift due to the prevalent 

 westerly winds across the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and 

 so has become widely dispersed in the Southern Hemisphere. 

 Direct importation by the agency of man is apparently, however, 

 the only means by which it could have reached Northern India ; its 

 isolated occurrence at Peshawar is certainly strange. This is the 

 only record of a member of the acanthodriliae group in India. 



