9632 Annelides. 



have been as likely to have imported them at an earlier period as now. There can be 

 very little doubt, however, that this is their first visit to this locality, since I have no! 

 only never met with them myself, but have failed, with the most searching inquiries 

 amongst the watermen and fishermen, who almost live upou the rocks and about the 

 quays, to find any one who has. I have been thus particular in the description of the 

 creature, as it is quite possible that some of your readers may have o))served them in 

 otlier localities without being awaie that there was anything uncommon in the fact. 

 Should they have done so, the communication of the result of their observations will 

 throw additional I'glit on the natural history of these curious Annelides. — Jonathan N. 

 Hearder; 28, Buckwell Street, Plymuutli, Mai/ 20, 1865.— jF/ow ' The Field.' 



Notes on Devon Annelids. By Edwakd Paefitt, Esq. 



I HAVE lately been favoured by Mr. D'Orville with a sight of a 

 volume of manuscrijU and drawings, by Colonel Montagu, on the 

 Annelids, &c., to use as I ihotigbt proper, for the wo k 1 am engaged 

 upon, namely ' A Catalogue Fauna and Flora of Devonshire,' with 

 notes and observations not before published, so far as I am aware, by 

 other observers. In so doing, I am sorry to say, I am relying mostly 

 on my own resources, jjarticulaily as regards the lower forms of life, 

 both vegetable and animal ; but, as I proceed upwards in the scale, 

 I hope to have a {o\v reliable assistants, but these only, so far as I am 

 now aware, will be principally confined to the birds and Lepidoptera; 

 but still I hope, as did Mr. Macawber, that others " will turn up." 



Colonel Montagu, just previous to his death, had- prepared in manu- 

 script a volume, nearly ready for publication, on the various Annelids 

 and other allied forms he had detected on the coast of Devon and sur- 

 rounding seas ; many of these do not appear to have ever been pub- 

 lished, or the specimens preserved, instead of which he had, in most 

 cases, drawn up careful specific descri]jtions of the species and 

 varieties. Some of these descriptions are exceedingly brief; indeed, 

 too much so to refer them to their proper places in the now-adopted 

 systems ; but in other cases the descriptions are full and the animals 

 can, and I hope are, referred to their proper localities. 



1 have adopted the nomenclature and arrangement of Dr. Johnston's 

 * Catalogue,' edited by Dr. Baird. By publishing these, I hope it may 

 lead to a further investigation of these curious and interesting creatures ; 

 and at the same time it is only due to the name of Colonel Montagu 

 to give him the credit of first investigating the auimals now under con- 

 sideration : I consequently give his MS. names, where such do not 

 occur in the genus to which they are respectively referred. It must 

 be uuderstood that this is not an entire Devonshire list, but only those 



