Gatty Marine Laboratory ^ St, Andrews. 109 



Polynoe trochiscophora may be the same form, but, as stated 

 in the ' Challenger' volume, the vagueness of the description 

 and figures left room for doubt. Into the details of the 

 description it is unnecessary to enter fully, but instead of the 

 palpi iDeing smooth, as Kinberg had said, they are densely 

 papillose. The first pair of scales are closely covered with 

 prominent chitinous spines, which in the scales immediately 

 succeeding become shorter, and then the rest are tuberculated 

 — that is, the spines become transformed into solid processes. 

 There are also various smaller spines, some of which are 

 hispid. The structure of the dorsal and ventral bristles was 

 carefully figured. The shorter stitfer examples are females 

 laden with ova, the longer forms males. Moreover the 

 segmental (nephridial) papilla are longer in the males, a 

 feature best seen posteriorly. In the female they are tulip- 

 shaped, with about four lobes surrounding the central cavity 

 at the tip. 



A comparison with LepiJonotus clava, Mont., during the 

 preparation of the ' Challenger ' Report showed the essential 

 differences. Yet it has often been pointed out that previous 

 authors occasionally left descriptions from which all the vital 

 characters had been omitted, and gave no figures or inadequate 

 ones. Hence their successors were often sorely puzzled to 

 identify the forms described, and could not avoid errors which 

 only a reference to the original specimen could have pre- 

 vented. When therefore it was found that Baron de Saint- 

 Joseph, in a paper just published, had included as a synonym 

 under Lepidonotus clava, Mont., Lepidonotus Wahlbergi as 

 described by Kinberg, myself, and Malaquin, a review of 

 these forms was made, fortunately with the actual specimens 

 in hand. 



Baron de Saint-Joseph gives as his main reasons for 

 joining the British and the South-African species that the 

 figure of the scale in the ' Challenger ' volume exactly agrees 

 with that of Lepidonotus clava, and that in the same work it 

 has been shown that the palpi are papillose, a feature also 

 characteristic of L. clava. 



Now, in the first place, accurate figures of the entire dorsum, 

 of the scale, of the dorsal and ventral bristles, with the 

 description, were at the disposal of the French author. In 

 the drawing of the dorsum * every scale has numerous large 

 tubercles, quite visible with the unaided eye and in the prepa- 

 rations under a lens, whereas in I^epidonotus clava only the 

 first four scales are furnished v.'iia tliese large processes, the 



* ' Challenger,' xii. pi. xi. tig. 1. 

 Ann. <& Mag. N. Hi'st. Ser. 7. Vol. ii. 9 



