112 PLANARIAN. [1899 



It was on May 20th (1899) that I received a note from one of our 

 leading liorticultural firms asking information regarding the specimen 

 sent accompanying, which had been forwarded to them by a corre- 

 spondent from an English locality. On examining the moss sent, I 

 saw nothing present excepting a kind of slimy- looking streak, of the 

 nature of which I knew nothing ; but, conjecturing from the locality 

 named (a hothouse or some similar locality) that moisture and slight 

 warmth might help to show something more plainly, I placed the moss 

 in some very slightly warmed water, and the efiect was rapid. 



The slimy streak became evidently alive, and gathered itself to- 

 gether into the shape of what seemed to me something like a Leech, 

 or still more like a small Snake with a bifid head, but much shorter 

 than " 1 " of the figure at p. Ill, and narrower than "2" of the same 

 figure. 



The colouring was of a kind of livid grey, with three darker longi- 

 tudinal stripes starting from behind the head, as especially shown at 

 figures " 1 " and "6." The head itself was of the bifid shape in front 

 figured at "G" ; and during the time that I watched the worm, so to 

 call it, I did not observe any alteration in the form of the head, which 

 alterations were, I believe, first recorded by Prof. Jeffrey Bell as one 

 of the remarkable characteristics of this species. This time of obser- 

 vation, however, was very short, for on feeling the warm water the 

 " Planarian " set out very soon on its journey for more comfortable 

 quarters, and travelled up the sloping sides of the bowl, carrying what 

 I then saw to be its bifid extremity (and subsequently found was its 

 head) steadily before it, and by the help of its flattened under surface 

 it made such solid although slow progress that, as I was at the time 

 quite unaware what might be the habits of the repulsive -looking 

 animal, I thought that the sooner it was shut safely up again the 

 better. 



I therefore replaced it with its lump of moss in its box, and re- 

 turned it to my correspondents, with the suggestion that they should 

 ask the favour of identification from the British Museum authorities 

 at South Kensington. 



This they accordingly did, and on May 21th informed me that the 

 specimen had been identified for them as the Bipalium kewense. Conse- 

 quently the animal proved to belong to the Geoplanidcc, or " Land 

 Planarians," a division of the Planar iudcB, which are one of the vast 

 numbers of families into which the great class of Vermes is divided. 

 So that for the sake of a generally intelligible appellation, although 

 these "Ground Planarians" difi'er in important respects from the 

 Annelida-, which include our common Earthworms, they may correctly, 

 as well as conveniently, be described as " worms." 



The description of the Planariadm is that the body is of a long 



