I9I4" j J Stephenson : OligocJiaela from NortheAi India. 323 



Of the same nature is the occurrence of Ocmrodrilns {Ocnero- 

 dikis) occidentalis, curiously enough also not far from Peshawar 

 (Mardan in Peshawar District), as well as at Rawal Pindi, 120 

 miles east of Peshawar. The species has been recorded by 

 Michaelsen (6) from Ceylon and Travancore. 



Of the two species of Lampito, L. Diauyitii is a well-known 

 wanderer ; L. barodensis, however, would seem to represent an 

 extension northwards of the proper range of the genus. 



The three species of Pheretima are of course also well-known 

 peregrine forms. But it is curious to note that while Pheretima is 

 the commonest genus in the Punjab^ as it is certainly one of the 

 commonest in Bengal (i.e. '' the lower provinces/' used as including 

 Bihar), it is nevertheless almost absent from the intervening terri- 

 tory. Though the United Provinces (the upper Gangetic plain) is 

 one of the best investigated regions in India in the matter of ter- 

 restrial Oligochaeta, Pheretima posthuma has hitherto been found 

 nowhere within its limits; though it is on the one hand the com- 

 monest worm of the Punjab, and on the other has been recorded 

 by Michaelsen (4) from no fewer than ten places in Bengal. A 

 few species of Pheretima, including those found in the Punjab, 

 have indeed been recorded from one or two places in the Himalayas 

 bounding the United Provinces on the North ; but never, I think, 

 from the upper Gangetic plain. 



Before the publication of Michaelsen's paper of 1907 (4) on 

 the Oligochaete fauna of India, the genus Eiity phoeus comprised 

 about half a dozen species, and it could scarceh'^ have been 

 suspected that it was one of the large and dominant genera of 

 the country. Michaelsen added fourteen species (though he sub- 

 sequently slightly reduced the number) ; I found four more in the 

 material gathered during the Abor expedition (15), and several 

 new species appear also in the present paper. The United Pro- 

 vinces and Bengal (including Assam) are the head-quarters of the 

 genus, outside which territories it has hitherto scarcely been 

 found at all. The present records extend the range of the archaic 

 species E. incommodus into the Punjab (as far as Hoshiarpur 

 District at the foot of the Himalayas), and that of the wide- 

 spread and variable E. waltoni to Baroda on the West Coast on 

 the one hand and to Hoshiarpur district (the same place as for 

 E. incommodus) on the other. The South-East Punjab is also, 

 owing to the discovery of a new species (£. ihrahimi) at Kapurthala 

 near JuUundur (Jalandhar), to be included in the endemic area of 

 the genus. 



Similarly the range of the genus Octochaetus is considerably 

 extended by the record of 0. fermori and also of a new species 

 (0. bishambari) from Saharanpur (extreme north-west of the 

 United Provinces, on the border of the Punjab) ; while another new- 

 species (0. dasi) makes its appearance at Baroda on the West Coast, 



The lyumbricidae are all peregrine forms. 



As regards the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, 

 the curious fact emerges that, so far as is known at present, this 



