14 Bit. W. BAIUD ON NEW TUBICOLOUS ANNELIDES. 



liquid a beautiful and delicate red tint. The whole animal is of 

 a fine blue colour, and the elegant tuft of branchial filaments 

 intensely azure banded with white. In describing the tube of 

 this species of Aunelide in 1843, Dr. Gray had only one or two 

 specimens to describe from, as the other specimens, which are now 

 in the Collection of the British Museum, arrived long after that 

 description was drawn up. He says, "the shell is thick, irre- 

 gularly twisted, opaque white, with a high compressed wavy keel 

 along the upper edge ; mouth orbicular, with a tooth above it, 

 formed by the keel. Operculum orbicular, horny." In the col- 

 lection there are two or three specimens which occur single, and 

 were found creeping on dead shells. To these this description 

 applies very well ; but, in addition to those, we have various spe- 

 cimens collected together into large masses nearly the size of a 

 small human head, and consisting of several thousands of tubes 

 twisted and twined together. In the generality of these we see 

 the keel, mentioned by Dr. Grray as "high," "compressed," and 

 forming " a tooth " at its extremity, becoming double as it were at 

 a certain distance from the mouth of the tube, diverging a little 

 from each other, the surface of the tube between the two keels 

 being raised to the same height as the tube, and thus forming a 

 rather broad flat tooth or strap which projects considerably be- 

 yond the circular rim of the mouth. In many specimens this 

 tooth is sharp-pointed, but in others it is blunt and rounded at 

 the point. 



Schmarda asserts that the species described by him is also a 

 native of the Cape of Good Hope. His description applies better 

 to the New Zealand specimens than to those from the Cape, and 

 I was led at first to separate the two as distinct species. A 

 more careful examination, however, of all the specimens we 

 possess from both these habitats, has now induced me to consider 

 those from the Cape of Good Hope to be only a variety of the 

 other. Several specimens of this variety, occurring in large 

 masses of some thousands of tubes clustered together, were col- 

 lected by Dr. Krauss many years ago at the Cape of Good Hope, 

 and are now in the Collection of the British Museum. 



This variety I have named 



Placostegus caeiniferus, var. Kraussii ; 

 and I here append a more detailed description of it. 



Char. Animal Placostego carinifero valde simile, sed minus intense cacru- 

 leiim. Branchiae ))allide caerulea;, albo-fasciatae, filamentis circiter 

 viginti et sex, uno latere plumosis. Setse pedum longse, numerosa;, 



