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ON BIPALIUM KEWENSE, MOSELEY. 53 
On Bipalium kewense, Moseley. By Cuarzes Hoae. 
[Read 29th December, 1896.] 
Bipalium kewense, Moseley, is a land planarian of foreign 
origin. It was first discovered in 1865 at the Botanic Gardens, 
Giessen, and again in a hothouse at Kew, and described in the 
year 1878 by Professor Moseley, F.R.S. (Annals and Magazine 
of Natural History, vol. i., Fifth Series, p. 237). The following 
is the description :— 
“ Body slightly rounded above, flat beneath, slightly narrower 
just behind the head, and tapering very gradually posteriorly, to 
terminate in a long and slender hinder extremity ; with a narrow 
but well-marked ambulacral line. Lunate head of moderate size, 
about twice as broad as the part of the body immediately behind 
it. General colour of the body light ochre-yellow above ; beneath 
very pale, almost white. Five dark violet stripes, a mesial and 
two pairs of lateral, extending along the entire length of the 
dorsal surface. The mesial stripe narrow and linear, the succeed- 
ing pair broad and band-like, and the outermost pair again linear. 
The outermost pair placed at a short distance from the lateral 
margin of the upper surface, and the band-like pair at half the 
distance between these and the central stripe. Just behind the 
head the two lateral bands on either side fuse together, and form 
a pair of broad dark patches.” ‘Faint and narrow violet stripes 
mark the margin of the ambulacral line on the under surface of 
the body. 
“ Length of single specimen, 9 inches; extreme breadth of the 
body, + inch ; of the head, + inch.” 
Dr. Albert Giinther, of the British Museum, refers in the 
Gardener's Chronicle to a specimen obtained at Welbeck Gardens 
in 1883 ; and again reference is made to this species in the same 
journal by Mr. F. Jeffrey Bell in 1886 as appearing at Fernhurst, 
_ Haslemere, and at Clapham Park. 
