262 Mr. F. E. Beddard ot^ 



XXXII. — Notes upon certain Species of iEolosoma. 

 By Frank E. Beddard, M.A., &c. 



§ 1. The Pigmented Vesicles o/'^olosoma quaternarium. 



Altliongh this species appears to be fairly common in 

 England, it is capricions in its occurrence. I have lately met 

 with it in abundance among* some Chara which was sent to 

 me by ]\lt\«srs. Bolton, and have been able to some extent to 

 compare its ))igment Avith \\vAi oi j^olosoma tenehraniin (Bed- 

 dard, "On the Green Cells in the Integument of ^"fo.sw^za 

 ienehrarum^'' Proc. Zool. Soc. 1889, p. 51, pi. v.) and JEolo- 

 soma lleadleyi (infih, p. 264). The colour of the pigmented 

 spots of this species is an orange-brown ; they appear more red 

 when examined under a low power ; as the colour of these 

 peculiar glandular cells is often so distinctive of the species, 

 it is confusing to iiud the descri])tions of them in species, which 

 appear to be identical with the present, so different in detail. 

 Lankester ('' A Contribution to a Knowledge of the Lower 

 Annelids," Trans. Linn. ^oc. vol. xxvi. p. 642) speaks of 

 them as " blood-red;" Vejdovsky (' System und Morphologic 

 der Oligocha^ten,' Frag, 1884, p. 18) describes them as orange- 

 red, but figures them {loc.cit. \A. i. fig. 1) as crimson ; Maggi 

 (" Intorno al genere ^olosonia,^^ j\lem. Soe. Itah Sci. Nat. 

 vol. i. p. 9) diflVrcntiates his ^oJosoma hcdsamo from other 

 species by the colour of these cells : — " inoltre le macchie, a 

 differenza delle altre, sono di un rosso aranciato ; " but I 

 must agree with Vejdovsky in refusing to admit the validity of 

 this species. Sehmarda describes a species — ylllolosoma pictum 

 • — which seems hardly to differ from the present, as having 

 purple-red (" purpur-roth ") oil-globules ; finally Cragin's 

 JEoIoi<oina Stokcfii {"■ First Contribution to a Knowledge of 

 the Lower Invertebrates of Kansas," Bull. Wash. Coll. i^ab. 

 1887, no. 8, p. 31), with " bright salmon-red nuclei," is, as I 

 have already suggested (Proc. Zool. Soc. to7n. cit.), devoid of 

 any characters by which it can be satisfactorily distinguished 

 from ud^olosomo Elirerihergii or ^'Eulosoma qiuiternarium, I 

 have observed but little variation in the coloration of the epi- 

 dermic oil-globules*, such as thereis, for example, mj^olosoma 

 lleadleyi ; it is therefore possible that the apparently different 

 colour of the species mentioned above implies speciHc distinc- 

 tion ; but it is on the whole more probable that the variation 



• In one specimen some of the spots \N'ere smaller and bad a purplish 

 colour. 



