some ?ic w Sjjecies 0/ D raw i da . 497 



Dr. Micliaelsen, in bis memoir on the Oligochseta o£ tlie 

 Indian Empire and Ceylon, remarks that S. India and 

 Ceylon are the proper home of the genus Drawida, and 

 perhaps the whole forest-clad elevated portion of western 

 India and Ceylon is its principal original habitat. In the 

 months of March and April, before the heavy showers 

 descend, the heat in this area is intolerable, and several 

 species of Urawida, perhaps meeting a rock or some other 

 impenetrable surface while burrowing deep down to escape 

 ihe dry heat, come out and perish in numbers all along 

 the jungle foot-paths. The immense thickening of the 

 anterior body-wall and the septa in all the species described 

 in this paper, and the provision for the storage of water in 

 the anterior nephridia (salivary glands) and the appendages 

 of the alimentary canal, must be closely correlated with the 

 conditions of life to which they are exposed. When a 

 specimen is put on a sheet of blotting-paper, it goes on 

 depositing drops of fluid exuding from the mouth as it 

 explores, and a few drops of such a fluid under the micro- 

 scope reveal cellular debris and corpuscles of the coelomic 

 fluid. The mode of transmission of water from one segment 

 to the other must be partly by percolation through septal 

 crevices and partly by rapid cellular absorption, aided by 

 the contraction of the specially large transverse muscles 

 in the genital and anterior somites. The conspicuous 

 development of these circular muscles and the enteric 

 aj)pendages are purely a secondary adaptation, and may vary 

 in individuals of the same species differently situated. 



Drawida somavarpatana, sp. n. 



External Characters. — Length of spirit-specimens, 80 to 

 95 mm. ; fully stretched live ones, 100 to 105 mm. ; maxi- 

 mum diameter in the preclitellar region, 5 mm. ; at about 

 middle of body, 3'5 to 4 mm. Number of segments 80 to 90 : 

 no secondary annulations. 



Colour, deep blue or almost black in the living condition. 

 Spirit-specimens grey with blue on the anterior somites. 



Prostomium prolobous; dorsal pores absent. Setae very 

 small and closely paired; aa equals be:, d is on the mid- 

 lateral line of body in the postclitellar part and below this 

 line anteriorly. 



Nephridiopores large, placed on seta-line d ; bases of setae 

 chiefly the ventral series surrounded by whitish sensoiy 

 papillae. The skin all along the line of nephridial apertures 

 has a glandular thickening. 



Ann. ct- Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 9. Vol viii. 32 



