PALOLO 129 



The swarming habit of some marine Annelids 

 for the purpose of breeding is worth mentioning 

 as affording a particularly interesting example 

 of bionomical convergence. The celebrated 

 palolo worm of Samoa and neighbouring parts 

 of the South Pacific is the occasion, in Samoa, 

 of an annual national festival owing to the 

 regularity and abundance of its swarms and to 

 its edible properties. It is eaten raw or baked 

 in leaves of the bread-fruit tree, and the natives 

 send presents of it to distant friends and to 

 the chiefs. 1 The most remarkable feature in 

 the biology of the palolo (Eunice viridis] is its 

 perfectly constant appearance in the months of 

 October and November when the moon is in 

 its last quarter. 



S. J. Whitmee, who first reported upon this 

 phenomenon in 1875 (? Zool. Soc., London, pp. 

 496-502), found that the palolo keeps astro- 

 nomical time ; as an indication of this it will 

 suffice to quote the recorded fact that in 1874 

 it reappeared, after an interval of thirteen lunar 

 months, on 3ist October and ist November. 

 Nineteen years later, in 1893, Dr Kramer col- 

 lected the material upon which A. Collin reported, 

 again on 3ist October and ist November. 



Subsequently an Atlantic palolo manifestation, 

 occurring in the Tortugas during June and July, 



1 Ant. Collin, 1897, "Bemerkungen iiber den essbaren Palolo- 

 wurm." In Kramer's " Bau der Korallenriffe." Kiel und Leipzig. 



I 



