Notes on INDIANA EARTHWORMS. 
H. V. HEIMBURGER. 
The great group of animals known commonly as earthworms, com- 
prises four families of the order Oligochaeta: the Moniligastride, the 
Megascolecide, the Glossoscolecidze and the Lumbricide. Three of these 
families are represented in our fauna. 
At the present time there are more than a thousand well recognized 
species of earthworms known. By far the larger number of these species 
have been described during the last twenty years. Most of the work on 
this group has been done by Europeans, chief among whom is Michaelsen of 
Hamburg, whose publications make up the bulk of the recent literature on 
the group. Professor Frank Smith of the University of Illinois has worked 
on the group in this country and Hisen, a Swede who lived for several 
years in San Francisco, has worked on West and Central American species.’ 
Very little is known of the earthworm fauna of the Central States. Only 
about fifty species are known to occur in the United States, this scarcity 
of forms being due in part to lack of study and partly to the actual scarcity 
of species.* 
It has been pointed out by Beddard’ and Michaelson* that the earth- 
worms are in important group for the Zodgeographer. Arldt,° in a recent 
paper, shows the value of the group for the paleo-geographer and gives 
many of the facts of distribution now known as well as indicating the 
yalue of the group in theoretical considerations within the fields of 
geography and geology. 
The Moniligastride is a small family limited to Borneo, Ceylon, 
Southern India and neighboring islands. This family is regarded as the 
most ancient of the group. 
1Hisen; American Oligochetes with special reference to those of the Pacific Coast and Adjacent 
Islands. Proceedings Calif. Acad. Science Vol. II, No. 2, 1900. 
2Frank Smith; Earthworms From Illinois. Trans. Ills. Acad. Science. 1912. 
3Beddard; A Textbook of Zodgeography. Cambridge, 1895. 
‘Michaelsen; Die geographische Verbreitung der Oligochaeten. Berlin, 1903. 
sArldt; Die Ausbreitung der terricolen Oligochaeten in Laufe der erdgeschichtlichen Entwicklung 
des Erdreliefs. Zool. Jahrb. Abt. f Syst. Geog. u Biol. Bd. 26, pp. 285-318. 1908, 
