THE LEECHES OF MINNESOTA 81 



The testes are present in the same number and occupy the same 

 positions as usual, each lying- just anterior to the base of one of the 

 gastric cseca. A ' long posterior loop of the vas deferens, partly 

 enlarged as a sperm sac, is developed and extends through the 

 ventral sinus to somite XV or beyond. 



The colors are plain but very pretty and exhibit a considerable 

 range of variation. The ground is ash or grayish brown, plain be- 

 low, but on the dorsal side generally marked by numerous narrow 

 longitudinal lines of brown pigment cells which give to that sur- 

 face a generally brown effect. The entire preocular region is per- 

 fectly white, and the neural annuli, for most of the length of 

 the body, are marked with two, four or six white spots arranged in 

 regular longitudinal series and flanking the three or five rows of 

 cutaneous papillae which, owing to their black color, are by contrast 

 very conspicuous. Sometimes the white spots fuse into metameric 

 transverse bars and more rarely they are absent. 



Habits — This handsome little leech is much less common than 

 G. stagnalis, though in some localities it occurs in abundance along 

 with that species and G. complanata. It seems to be more partial 

 to colder waters than either of these species and is sometimes 

 found in springs where they do not occur. In ponds it frequently 

 fastens itself upon the shells of the larger species of Lymnaea and 

 other snails and more rarely to the larger leeches. Less active 

 than G. complanata it feeds less frequently upon active worms and 

 larvae but confines its attacks almost exclusively to the smaller snails, 

 snails. 



In placing its eggs in a small number of large capsules this 

 species resembles G. complanata, but it breeds later than that species, 

 continuing far into the summer (as late as Aug. 6th) to carry newly 

 laid eggs. 



Concerning the name of this species it should be said that 

 Yen-ill's name lincata, although the earliest, must be discarded on 

 account of Mullers earlier use of Hirndo lincata which is clearly a 

 Glossiphonia and probably G. complanata, though so far as I know 

 it has been definitely determined. Glossiphonia triscrialis E. 

 Blanchard (1849) bears a remarkably close resemblance to our 

 species and was at one time regarded by me as identical with it, 

 but R. Blanchard has recently repeated (1900) his earlier statement 

 (1896) that the genital orifices are separated by two annuli in this 

 species and not by one as in G. fusca. 



