502 FRANK E. BEDDARD. 
Annelids has not yet to my knowledge been recorded as occur- 
ring in New Zealand. 
The characters of the albuminous fluid filling the cocoon 
have been shown by Vejdovsky to vary somewhat in different 
species. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that in Allurus 
tetraeder this fluid is perfectly clear and transparent; in 
this there is a resemblance to Rhynchelmis. I have else- 
where pointed out that this earthworm Allurus, largely 
aquatic in habit, resembles many aquatic genera in the large 
size of the eggs, and in the shortness of the sperm-ducts, which 
open on to the exterior in front of the oviducal pore. The 
coincidence of these three characters in an aquatic Oligochzte 
belonging to a group which is so characteristically terrestrial 
seems to require some explanation, which, however, does not at 
present appear to be obvious. 
In Acanthodrilus multiporus, as in Lumbricus 
rubellus, &c., the albuminous fluid filling the cocoon is 
milky and opaque; it is readily washed out of the cocoon by 
water, and there was thus no difficulty in extracting the 
embryos. 
§ Development of Nephridia: 
Stage A. 
The youngest embryo which I have is rather younger than 
that figured on pl. xviii, fig. 51, of Wilson’s memoir (No. 15). 
It has hardly acquired a vermiform shape (see fig. 23), and 
is 2 mm. in length, being, therefore, rather smaller than the 
embryo of Allolobophora fetida referred to. The 
stomodeum had not yet joined the mesenteron, and I could 
find no proctodzeum, which here, as in Lumbricus, is a late 
formation. 
In this embryo the anterior half-dozen pairs of nephridia 
were fully developed and no doubt functional. They are 
distinctly paired structures, and lie on either side of the 
gut or stomodzum as the case may be. 
Kach nephridium is furnished with a well-developed funnel 
