498 REV. S.J. WHITMEE ON PALOLA viriDis. [dune 15, 
the water. They move rapidly, and with considerable elegance, in a 
spiral manner, like a screw. ‘The shortest, which were about 
6 inches long, had generally two coils, while the longest, which were 
fully 18 inches long, had as many as five or six coils. The best 
representation of their appearance I think of is the tendril of a 
climbing plant, with a coil to about each three inches of its length. 
In places where the Palolo were plentiful they seemed to be entangled 
in an inextricable mass. 
The worms were of two colours, green and light brown*. Taking 
a green one into the palm of my hand with alittle water, I subjected 
it to slight pressure with my finger, when it broke into pieces of 
from half an inch to an inch and a half in length, and each piece 
wiggled about until it subdivided once or twice. From each frac- 
ture there immediately flowed out an immumerable quantity of minute 
green eggs, until nothing was left of the pieces into which the worm 
had broken except thin transparent cysts. Next, taking one of the 
light-brown worms into my hand, it ruptured exactly as the green 
one did, and from each end of the pieces a whitish fluid freely flowed, 
leaving, as in the green worm, only thin transparent cysts. It was 
evident these were the two sexes, and that, while the females were 
filled with ova (a small portion of each extremity excepted), the 
males were as completely filled with the seminal vesicles. - 
The question now was, how are the ova of the female fertilized ? 
I saw no sexual contact. But the secret of the appearauce of the 
Palolo seemed solved: by this time the sun had been half an hour 
above the horizon; and the worms were rapidly breaking to pieces in 
the sea just as those had broken which I took into my hand. Where 
they were thickest the sea was discoloured with the milky seminal 
fluid which was escaping from both ends of each piece-of the brown 
male worms; and by taking a small quantity of sea-water into the 
palm of my hand, I found it to be full of the minute green eggs which 
had flowed from the ruptures of the green female Palolo. Hence 
this breaking-up appeared to be a natural process by which the 
species is propagated, the eggs being fertilized by contact with the 
semen while floating in the sea. 
I felt fully convinced this was the mode of propagation of the 
Palolo, and that this fully accounted for its regular appearance, but 
resolved to wait and make another observation before communicating 
my opinion to the Society. I therefore visited the same place on the 
11th November, 1873, hoping to have another opportunity of seeing 
* In the late Dr. Seemann’s ‘ Mission to Viti,’ p. 61, it is said, “‘ They are 
of various colours, green, red, brown, and sometimes white.” Although I have 
had Palolo brought to me by the natives for several years, I have never seen 
more than two colours; but some of the brown ones are of a lighter shade than 
others. Ihave occasionally found specimens of another annelid, which was red, 
mixed with a mass of Palolo. When preserved in alcohol or Goatby’s solution, 
the brown worms get stained with the colour of the green ones. Hence the 
origin of the specific name. As will appear further on, the green colour is 
confined to the eggs of the gravid female. Hence, except when they are full of 
eggs, and the brown ones are stained by the green colouring-matter, this name is 
inappropriate. : 
