86 ProL M'Intosli's Notes from the 



vent. Skin-glanc's abound throughout the body, forming 

 considerable and symmetrical areas anteriorly. Double 

 hook-rows occur from the fifth to the fifteenth, and the hooks 

 gradually increase from forty to sixty, the maximum being 

 reached in the sixteenth, and thereafter they diminish to six 

 in the fortieth segment in a large example. The capillary 

 bristles form two groups in each segment from the first to 

 the ninth ; the bristles of the anterior or first tuft have fairly 

 broad wings and a tapering tip. About the tenth segment 

 are bristles with a bolder curve and somewhat narrower 

 wings. The posterior group consists of longer forms with a 

 very narrow wing and finely tapered tip. The typical hooks 

 have a comparatively short shaft which dilates as it passes 

 upward, the head being curved backward at a considerable 

 angle to the shaft, and the neck is broad. The posterior 

 outline presents a process or spur, and above the large and 

 sharp main fang are a series of smaller teeth which diminish 

 in size superiorly. The anterior edge has a concavity below 

 the fang, then a pointed process slanting to the great fang, 

 and an incurvation below it, followed by the blunt process 

 from which the ventral border passes with a very slight 

 curve. Arwidsson finds fault Avith the figure in the 'Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh ' *, but that was 

 drawn by aid of the camera lucida. Any peculiarity there- 

 fore is due to nature, and affects the rounded prow at the 

 ventral end of the shaft, which he shows somewhat less 

 i-ounded. A reference to the preparation demonstrates that 

 the early figure is accurate, the ventral line presenting little 

 curvature behind the prow. Whether a closely allied but 

 not identical form therefore exists in the Hebridean seas is a 

 possible question, but so far as the hooks go there may be 

 only variation. The fragments secured are so indefinite that 

 they are useless for minute discrimination. The tube of 

 secretion and mud is somewhat small, rather soft, and varies 

 a little according to size. 



The second species is Nicumache maculata, Arwidsson f, 

 a form frequently confounded with the more northern 

 N. hanhricuUs, O. Fabr. It is abundant between tide-marks 

 at St. Andrews, and indeed appears to occur all round the 

 British shores. The anterior end is somewhat iJluntly trun- 

 cated, rounded in the living form, but in the preserved con- 

 dition it presents iuferiorly a somewhat shovel-shaped short 



* Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin. vol. xxv. pi. xv. fig. 16. 

 t Proc. E. Irish Acad. vol. xxix. p. 209 (1911). 



