144 A renicolidae 



Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. They are both 

 undoubted A. hraiicliialis. 



The three specimens recorded Ijy Grube, from Saint-Malo and 

 Roscoff, as A. ecaudata, are preserved in the K. Zoologisches 

 Museum, Berlin, and have been shown by the writer to be examples 

 of A. hranchiaUs. 



Ives' definition of the " species " ecaudata — with eleven to fifteen 

 pre-branchial segments — and the localities cited — Europe, Medi- 

 terranean, Black Sea — show that A. hranchiaUs was included. 



The Oatanian Arenicola described by Grube had thirty-eight 

 segments, the first eleven of which were abranchiate, and it therefore 

 belonged to this species. 



In Delle Chiaje's account of his examples of " A. piscatormn," 

 the chief characters mentioned are that the w^orms were reddish 

 yellow, and had thirty-one chaetiferous segments, thirteen to twenty 

 of whicli bore bi- or tri-partite gills. A specimen with thii'ty-one 

 segments and twenty pairs of gills would have the first pair on the 

 twelfth segment, as in A. hranchiaUs, and no doul)t some of the 

 specimens belonged to this species. Those with thirteen pairs of 

 gills may have been examples of A. jncsilla. 



The unsatisfactory nature of the information given l)y Delle 

 Chiaje regarding " Lumhricus marinus " has already been noticed 

 (pp. 120, 121), and the reasons stated for believing that his series 

 of specimens included one or more A. hranchiaUs. 



Bionomics. — The habits of Arenicola hranchiaUs are similar to 



those of A. ecaudata (see p. 135), and the two species have been 



frequently taken together. A. hranchiaUs is usually found in 



oblique or sinuous cavities^ in coarse, sandy or gravelly material, 



among stones about the mid-littoral zone. Like other species, 



A. hranchiaUs is more plentiful in situations in which organic matter 



is abundant ; for instance, in the Bay of Naples this species lives by 



preference near the mouths of drains, where it is very common (Lo 



Bianco). Prof. Fauvel found A. hranchiaUs, near Cherbourg, in 



black muddy sand which gave off an offensive odour ; the worms 



were so abundant there that they were collected for use as bait." 



This species is, however, seldom found in such large numbers, or 



obtained so easily, as to make its collection for bait worth the labour 



required. 



' Snint-Joseph (loc. cit.) found a specimen of A. hranchiaUs, at St. Jean de 

 Luz, in the sand, in a U-shaped burrow similar to that of A. marina. 

 " Bull. Soc. Linn. Normandie, ser. 5, ii (1899), p. 67. 



