STRUCTURE OF SEVERAL FORMS OF LAND PLANARIANS. 283 



Land Planarians of South Africa. 



Two species of Land Planarians were obtained at the Cape of 

 Good Hope, a region from which they had been supposed to be 

 absent, Grube having laid stress on their absence from Africa, 

 and consequently supposed correspondence in distribution with 

 the land leeches.^ 



The Planarians were found in the grounds of the Astronomical 

 Observatory at Wynberg, Cape of Good Hope. 



Sections of the fresh tissues were examined. When a vertical 

 section was pressed slightly under a covering glass, elongate, rod- 

 like bodies were shot out from the surface of the skin, and seen to 

 project from it in great numbers. Amongst the rods also were seen 

 masses of slime ejected by tlie slime glands, which I have described 

 as existing in the Rhynchodemus and Bipahum ('Phil. Trans.,' I.e., 

 p. 121), and which I here observed in action (PI. XX, fig. 34). 

 The long rods (PI. XX, fig. 23) are contained, when quiescent, 

 within ovoid transparent cells, in which they are coiled up in an 

 irregularly spiral manner. 



Three or four rods are present in each cell, and the rods are 

 shot clear of the cell when it ruptures and ejects them. There 

 is hence no further point of resemblance here brought out be- 

 tween the rod-cell and the nematocysts of Cffilenterates (PI. XX, 

 figs. 19 and 20). The ends of the rods when free show a ten- 

 dency to bend over and curl up. Rod-cells also occur in these 

 species of Ehynchodemus, as in all aquatic Planarians in which 

 the rods are short and straight, and not twisted spirally. 



Diagnosis of tioo new genera and nine neio species of Land 

 Planarians. 



Genus Geoplana. 



1. Geoplana flava, sp. n. (PI. XX, fig. 10). — Body elongate, 

 flat beneath, only slightly convex above, attenuate at both ex- 

 tremities, the anterior terminating bluntly. Body of a clear light 

 yellow colour on the dorsal surface, shading into burnt sienna 

 colour at the two extremities and the lateral margins. A glis- 

 tening white stripe passes along the entire length of the back 

 along the middle line, reaching to the tip of the head. Pour 

 narrower similar stripes are present on either side of the mesially 

 placed one, and extend along the body parallel to it. Eye- 

 spots are present in two elongate, irregular patches, one on either 

 side, near the anterior extremity, and scattered sparsely on the 

 lateral margins for the entire length of the animal. 

 .^ Ed. Grube, ' Ueber Land-Planarien, Jaliresbericht der schlesi&chen 

 Gesells. fiir Vaterland. Kultur,' 1866, p. 61. 



