Airnci.E XVI.-PREMMINAUV URPORT ON TWO HIRUDTNKA 

 FROM THE SURANTARCTIC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



By W. B. Benham, D.Sc, F.R.8. 



Time does not permit me to give a detailed anatomical account of the two leeches 

 collected during the expedition. To await the arrival of the necessary literature 

 from Europe would delay the issue of this volume, in which it has been deemed 

 desirable to include them ; so that the present account must be regarded as merely 

 a preliminary one, and the names as provisional, which may need correction in a 

 further article, in which the internal structure will be discussed. 



Order RHYNCHOBDELLIDA. 

 Fam. ICHTHYODELLIDAE. 

 NoTOBDELLA, gen. prov. 

 Notobdella nototheniae, sp. nov. 



It is not without much misgiving that I bestow a new generic name on this 

 little fish-leech, which was collected, while at the Snares, from the skin of Noto- 

 thenia micro! epidota which Mr. Waite caught with a line from the rocks ; for 

 although this leech agrees generally with Trachelohdella, Diesing {CaUiobdella, v. 

 Beneden), it is totally unprovided with the characteristic vesicular gills, and thus 

 resembles Piscicola, Blainville, which, however, occurs as a parasite on fresh- 

 water fishes only. Van Beneden and Hesse* used the title Ichthyohdella for leeches 

 of similar form occurring on marine fishes, but Blanchardf points out that this is a 

 synonym of Piscicola, and therefore cannot be employed ; but he does not suggest 

 any new generic name for gill-less marine fish-leeches — at any rate, in this article. 

 Possibly he has done so in a later paper which is not available here (see Remarks 

 on p. 374). I have therefore given a provisional name to the present species. 



Dimensions. — AVhen newly caught I noted that they are. " when fully extended, 

 about 1 in. in length, or rather more." But the largest of them when preserved 

 is only 15 mm. in length, with a greatest diameter of 2-25 mm., and a height of 

 1-75 mm. at the middle of the tnmk. The neck measures 4 mm., the anterior 

 sucker 1 mm., and the posterior sucker 1-75 mm. in diameter. 



* P. .J. van Beneden and Hesse, " Recherclies sur les Bdellodes et les Trematodes marins," 1862. 

 t R. Blancliard, BoU. Mus. Zool. Torino, ix, 1894. 



