XIV. ON SOME AQUATIC OLIGOCHABTA 

 IN THE COLLECTION OF THE INDIAN 



M U S E U M . 



By J. Stephenson, M.B., D.Sc. (Lond.), Government 

 College, Lahore. 



During the past year I have, through the kindness of the 

 authorities of the Indian Museum, received at various times 

 specimens of small aquatic Oligochaeta for examination. An 

 account of these is given in the present communication. 



Our knowledge of the Oligochaeta fauna of the Indian region 

 has of late years been very considerably increased through the re- 

 searches of Michaelsen {Mem. Ind. Mus., vol. i, No. 3, and 

 Abh. aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften, Naturw. Verein, 

 Hamburg, xix Band, 5 Heft) on the collections made by the 

 Indian Museum. This increase in our knowledge however relates 

 more especially to the terrestrial forms, and the number of aquatic 

 Oligochaeta known from the Indian region is still very small. 

 Especially is this the case with the large families of the Enchy- 

 traeidae and Tubificidae, so common in Europe ; only one Tubificid, 

 and one Enchytraeid, of which latter the genus is doubtful, having 

 so far been recorded. 



This may perhaps receive a partial explanation in the small 

 size of these worms, and the fact that they consequently elude the 

 collector, unless he happens to be specially interested in them 

 or specially looking for them. Still, seeing that the Naididae, com- 

 prising the smallest or almost the smallest forms in the whole Order ^ 

 are represented in the Indian fauna by about twenty species, it 

 may not improbably be the case that Enchytraeids and Tubificids 

 are actually somewhat rare. 



Another hindrance to our knowledge of these small and deli- 

 cate forms is the difficult}^ of adequately describing them — or 

 even, it may be, of identifying them — from preserved specimens 

 only. Most of those I have received from Calcutta have been 

 preserved, since it is difficult to transport the living worms 

 safely for 1,300 miles in this climate ; of the species mentioned 

 below, examples of Aulophorus tonkinensis however reached me 

 alive. I am therefore conscious that the notes are not so full 

 as is desirable, but considering the small amount that is known, it 

 seems better to give the following descriptions, though incomplete 

 in many ways, rather than to allow the material to be wasted. 



