450 Mr. II. A. Baylis on a 



Ituri Forest district, between the rivers Welle and Aruwimi. 

 The particular localities mentioned for the syntypes are 

 Medje and Fundi. 



I am indebted to Dr. Christy for some most interesting 

 notes on the habits of these worms, from which 1 take the 

 liberty of quoting some passages. With regard to their 

 habitat and mode of life, he says : — " The worms are found, 

 I think, all through the Ituri forest region, in wet forest. 

 They go down several feet in the red clay, and it requires a 

 lot of digging to get them. It is a common sight ... to 

 see their red clay ' chimneys ' [casts] sticking up amongst 

 the dead leaves. These are sometimes 1 or 5 inches high, 

 and about 1^ inches in diameter : usually open at the top, 

 but sometimes closed and rounded off ... I have seen miners 

 at the Bahayru mines using them as tobacco-pipes after 

 baking them in the fire." 



When irritated, the worms have the habit, like some other 

 large earthworms, of squirting fluid from the dorsal pores to 

 a considerable distance. The natives avoid touching them 

 on this account, probably thinking them to be prisonous*. 

 With regard to this habit, I again quote Dr. Christy's 

 notes: — "Their squirting propensities only come into play 

 under provocation. Many times I had pickrd them up with 

 the fingers — which is not easy — before I discovered the 

 habit. Only when I used the rat-tongs did 1 find out what 

 they could do. The little jets of milky or opalescent and 

 somewhat viscid fluid come simultaneously from all the 

 pores [along each side of the body], and, to be on the safe 

 side, are 10 or 12 inches high, but I think higher. The 

 animal can make a second discharge some minutes later, or 

 even a third." The words in square brackets in this passage 

 are Dr. Christy's, but I think he must have been under a 

 false impression with regard to the pores being on the sides 

 of the body. 1 cannot find any pores there from which the 

 fluid could have been squirted, and am of the opinion that it 

 must come from the dorsal pores, which are large and con 

 spicuous. With a struggling worm held in the forceps it 

 Mould be difficult to see exactly where the jets of fluid 

 originated. 



On Dr. Christy's suggestion that the specific name should 

 have reference to this power of squirting, I propose to call 

 the new species Dichogaster jaculatrix. 



* A reference to the effectiveness of the same protective habit in 

 another (unidentified) earthworm in Sierra Leone will be found in my 

 paper on Aspidolrilus (Aim. & Mag. Nat. Hist, (8) xiv. 1914, p. 140). 



