34 DR. R. F. SCHARFF ON A NEW 
into it. It is finely pointed and somewhat cylindrical, and is the 
seat of the principal sensory organs of the body. As the animal 
moves about, it is kept off the ground and acts as a tactile organ 
much like the tentacles of a snail. In some of the Planarian 
worms, such as Placocephalus kewensis (Bipalium kewense), 
which has been taken in a few English and Irish greenhouses, 
this portion of the body assumes a characteristic cheese-cutter 
shape. The posterior end of the body of our worm is but slightly 
attenuated, and the sole is continued to the extreme tip. 
These were all the observations that I could make during the 
life of the single specimen in my possession *. I decided there- 
fore to kill it without further delay, and placed it in a 4-per- 
cent. solution of commercial formalin. The immediate effect was 
a very considerable shrinkage of the specimen, which became 
reduced to a length of 75 millim. and a width of 43 millim.t 
One advantage this treatment had on the worm was to reveal two 
openings on the underside. From the first, situated 40. millim. 
from the anterior end, a triangular body, viz., the pharynx 
(Pl. 6. fig. 2, ph.), had been partially forced out by the. con- 
traction. This larger opening is therefore the mouth, and the 
much more minute one (g), 13 millim. behind it, the genital 
pore. 
Being unable to perceive any trace of eyes or even of a sensory 
sroove at the anterior end of the body, I felt it would have been 
impossible to determine the specimen with any degree of cer- 
tainty without cutting sections. In this dilemma my friend 
Prof. Howes offered me help. He kindly commissioned one of 
his students, Mr. H. H. Swinnerton, to cut me a number of 
microscopic sections, and to their generous assistance I owe the 
pleasure of being able to describe this interesting specimen, and 
add another species to the known European Land-planarians. 
The name Rhynchodemus Howesi is therefore appropriate. 
The recent publication of Prof. von Graff's magnificent mono- 
graph on the Land-planarians (2), has rendered the identification 
of my specimen a comparatively easy task. To give a complete 
account of its anatomy would be quite impossible, as the single 
* It has now been deposited in the Dublin Museum. 
+ Unfortunately, the vessel containing my specimen broke on the journey 
from the Pyrenees to Bordeaux, but the officials of the Museum in the latter 
town most liberally offered me a new jar with alcohol. Owing to these adverse 
circumstances the preservation of the worm is not altogether satisfactory. 
