234 Records of the Indian Museum, [VoL VEL, 
As to whether this would lead to difficulties with regard to 
the homologies of the genital organs or not I cannot say. It 
would be interesting to have details of the budding process and of 
the position of the genital organs in Naidiuwm, where the dorsal 
setae begin on the second segment ; but these are lacking. The 
above views would not lead to any difficulties in the case of 
Pristina; here the testes are in segment vii, the ovaries in vili, 
i.e. the genital organs are displaced two segments backwards as 
compared with other genera. But the segments contributed to 
the animal’s head from the budding zone are also more numerous 
than usual, seven instead of five, and therefore the testes are still 
in the last segment to be added from the budding zone, as in Navzs 
and other genera. 
Te. 
Branchiura sowerbyi, Bedd. 
This interesting worm, belonging to that small group of 
Oligochaeta which possess gills, was first described by Beddard (1) 
in 1892 from specimens obtained from the mud of the Victoria 
vegia tank in the Royal Botanical Society’s Gardens in London ; 
of these specimens only one was sexually mature, and this fur- 
nished the material for his description of the genital organs. No 
more was heard of this worm till 1908, when Michaelsen (7) found 
specimens, among them several sexually mature, in a warm water 
tank of the Botanical Gardens at Hamburg; Michaelsen’s 
account deals exclusively with the genital system, in which he 
finds a number of differences as compared with Beddard’s descrip- 
tion. LL. Perrier (10) shortly afterwards notified the discovery of 
numerous specimens in the Rhone, but did not add any anatomical 
details. Lastly in 1911 I (13) found the worm in a nullah near 
Lahore in the Punjab; I was able to add a number of anatomical 
facts to those recorded by Beddard, but none of my specimens 
were sexually mature. 
I have since then received specimens from two sources. In May 
rgtt Mr. Gravely of the Indian Museum sent me a tube contain- 
ing living specimens of the worm taken in Calcutta; they were 
obtained from mud in an earthenware basin containing aquatic 
plants planted in mud and water in the Museum garden. It is 
noteworthy that the worms were put into the tube on the 12th 
May, and were received by post in Lahore at 4.30 p.m. on the 
evening of.the 15th; the tube was opened immediately, and the 
worms were found to be still quite lively. The mean tempera- 
ture at Lahore for the 24 hours was at this date 90°, the maxi- 
mum in the shade 106°F, and the temperatures must certainly 
have been higher in a railway van coming from the south. 
A few observations were made on the movements of the 
living worm. As remarked above, they were quite active. The 
posterior part of the body was at times held quite still while the 
