Airrici-E Xf.-RKPORT ON THE J>{)IA'CHAKTA OF THE SlI]]- 

 ANTAliCTlC ISLANDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



By W. B. Benham, D.Sc, F.R.S., University of Otago. 



PLATE IX. 



The collection of marine annelids is a small one, and must not be taken as indicating 

 any poverty in this group of animals, for during my stay at the Auckland Islands 

 I paid special attention to the terrestrial annelids and other invertebrates, and only 

 collected very casually on the sea-shore. I saw many species, such as Serpulids, 

 which I neglected to gather : these can be easily obtained by future naturalists 

 during any brief stay at the locality. 



The general facies of the annelid fauna is, if one may judge from the few repre- 

 sentatives herein recorded, similar to that of the shores of New Zealand, of which 

 Ehlers (2, p. 4) writes, " The general facies of the [New Zealand] fauna must clearly 

 be termed ' Pacific-notial ' ; and thus serves as a link with the west coast of South 

 America on the one hand, and with the southern extremity of Africa on the other. 

 Whether, and how far, a notial marine area of the Pacific can be separated from that 

 of the Atlantic is not yet apparent." Possibly, when the results of the recent 

 Antarctic expeditions have been worked out more light will be shed on this problem. 



In his memoirs on the annelids of New Zealand, Ehlers has pointed out that 

 many of our commonest Polychaeta are identical with those of the Magellan Strait, 

 Fuegia, and Chili ; some, like Nereis australis and Arenicola assimilis var. affinis, 

 are found also at Kerguelen and the Falkland Islands, and thus repeat in their dis- 

 tribution that of Notiodrilus amongst the earthworms. Others, like Syllis clostero- 

 branchia and Thelepus flagiostoma, occur on the African coast. A few are very 

 widely distributed, as Arabella iricolor, and Onwphis tvbicola, both of which are in- 

 habitants of the British seas ; while Polydora polybranchia, originally described 

 from Port Jackson, though chiefly antarctic, has been found in the Mediterranean 

 and the Strait of Dover. 



Only two of the species in this collection are endemic to New Zealand, Lepi- 

 dasthenia comma and Timarete anchylochaeta (the latter of which, however, if the 

 synonymy is correct, was found at Port Jackson by Kinberg). 



Perhaps the most interesting result of my study is the identification of our 

 common Nereis, named by Schmarda N. australis, with the South American N. 

 magalhaensis ; while the discovery of a species of the peculiar Nereid genus Lycastis 

 in our area adds a new genus to our fauna and another common link with South 

 America. 



