320 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 
and lands that immediately surround us here in Australasia, 
more especially in the Antarctic region. My original pur- 
pose was to deal with the entire group of earthworms, but 
that became too vast, and I felt that I should be trespassing © 
too much upon your patience if I took you so far from 
home. 
Even with this limitation to Australasia, we shall have to 
wander some distance, and we shall have to rearrange the 
geography of the Southern Hemisphere, and try to imagine 
the geography of by-gone ages. To this old-time geography 
I would apply the term “ Paleogeography ’—a word_ that, 
so far as I am aware, has not hitherto been employed—and 
it seems to me useful to have such a word to express the 
geography of former geological epochs. 
In an attempt to deduce any valuable results from the 
study of Zoogeography, it is recognised that some groups of 
animals are preferable to others, more especially terrestrial 
animals, to which continuity of land-surface is a necessity 
for migration from one part of the world to another. The 
Mammalia is one such group; Amphibia and Reptilia are 
also of value, for to many of them a wide arm of the sea acts 
as a barrier to migration. And, amongst the lower animals, 
there are few so valuable, in certain respects, as the soft- 
bodied earthworms. : : 
But the study of the distribution of earthworms is at- 
tended by certain disadvantages, as well as byits advantages. 
For, in the first place, there is no possibility of the discovery 
of any undoubted fossil remains of worms; we have no geo- 
logical record to fall back upon in support of, or in contra- 
diction of any hypothesis we may formulate as an outcome 
of the study; and, secondly, these animals have been much 
neglected, owing, no doubt, to their cryptozoic habit, and to 
the absence of any attractive characters whereby the atten- 
tion of collectors may be drawn to them; thus it comes 
about that there is still much to be discovered about the 
earthworm fauna of several parts of the world. 
The mode of life of earthworms is such that the possi- 
bilities of dispersal are extremely limited. They live, 
usually, under stones, under logs, and amongst the roots of 
plants; while many form burrows in the soil, which may 
reach as much as 2 or 5 feet in depth. In many cases, the 
worms live near the bottom, though some remain near the 
mouth of the burrow. The earthworm rarely leaves the 
burrow, except at night, and it appears that normally it 
never wanders far away; indeed, the tail of the worm 
generally remains in the mouth of the burrow, so that, on a 
