16 



bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



(1903) for Ceratocephale osawai. A similar swarming of marine annelids, 

 and at corresponding seasons, is known for other islands of the Pacific, 

 though the worms have not everywhere been identified. Powell (1883) 

 speaks of them in the Gilbert Islands where they are known to the 

 natives as te nmatamata, and Codrington (1891) gives a detailed account 

 for Mota in the Banks Islands where they are known as un. Brown 

 (1877) mentions an annual appearance of a " Palolo " on the East coast 

 of New Ireland. That the annelid is best known from Samoa and 

 Fiji is accounted for by these two groups of islands having been most 

 visited and longest inhabited by whites. It is significant also that such 

 records as we possess from other places, though meagre, have come to 

 us through the missionaries, the pioneers of intelligent whites in the 

 islands of the Pacific. 



