1901.] ON AK AKNELID OF THE GENUS ALMA. 215 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXL 



Pig. 1. Halonoproctus ricketti (p. 209). Lateival view. 



1 a. „ ,, Dorsal view of cephalothorax and abdomen, 



1 b. „ „ Ventral view of ditto. 



1 c. „ „ Posterior view of abdomen. 



1 d. „ „ Eyes. 



2. Laiouckiafossoria (p. 211). Sternum. 



2 a. „ „ Eyes. 



3. „ swinhoei {■p. 211). Palp of c3". 



3 a. „ „ Anterior view of tarsus and palpal organ. 



4. MacTothele palpator (p. 213). Palp of cf . 



5. „ Msz;f (p. 214). Palp of cf. 



5. On the Clitellum and Spermatophores of an Annelid of the 

 Genus Alma. By Frank E. Beddard, M.A., F.R.S. 



[Eeceived January 31, 1901.] 

 (Text-figures 59 & 60.) 



Although the genus Alma is now fairly well known owing to 

 the investigatious of Levinsen (1), Michaelsen (2, 3, 4), and myself 

 (5, 6, 7), no one has up to the present been able to detect the 

 clitellum. That the spermatophores have not been found is less 

 surprising, since these organs are known in but a small number of 

 extra-European earthworms. I am now able, through the kind- 

 ness of Mr. J. S. Budgett, F.Z.S., to fill in these two lacunte 

 in our knowledge of Alma. This gentleman has kindly placed 

 in my hands a number of examples of a species of Alma 

 which he collected during his recent expedition to the Grambia. 

 They were gathered on McCarthy Island in that river, and consist 

 of two fully mature specimens and of a few immature worms. 

 The genus itself is purely African, and for the most part 

 " Ethiopian " in range ; the only species which reaches the 

 PalsBarctic portion of that continent is Levinsen's " Sip honog aster 

 cegyptius,''' which appears to be identical with Grube's (8) Alma 

 nilotica. It is, as I first pointed out, undoubtedly a member of 

 the family Geoscolicidse. It had been formerly regarded, though 

 perhaps with some doubt, as an Eudrilid, to which latter family 

 so many of the Ethiopian earthworms belong. My observations 

 upon the clitellum confirm the justice of ihe former view, which 

 is, indeed, definitely accepted by Dr. Michaelsen in his recently 

 issued " Oligochseten " in the 'Tierreich' (9). He associates 

 it with the genera Oriodrilus and Sparganophilus in a subfamily 

 Criodrilinae, mainly distinguished from other Geoscolecids by the 

 absence or rudimentary condition of the gizzard. In the generic 

 definition of Alma occurs the sentence " Giirtel fehlt (?)," an 

 almost necessary query in view of the fact that so many individuals 

 of the genus had been submitted to careful examination, and that 

 in not a single one was there any trace of this characteristic 

 clitellum of the Oligochaeta. It is possibly the case here, as in 

 the aquatic lower Oligochseta, that the clitellum is only periodically 

 developed, and that it is not so continuous a structure as appears 



15* 



