[IX.] 



THE ENTEROPNEUSTA. 



PART. I. 



BY JAS. P. HILL, 



Demonstrator of Biology in the University of Sydney. 

 [Plate IX.] 



THE Collection of Enteropneusta brought by Mr. Charles Hedley 

 from Funafuti, and which I have had the privilege of examining 

 through the kindness of Mr. R. Etheridge, Junr., Curator of the 

 Museum, comprises two distinct and widely separated species 

 belonging to the genus Ptychodera. 



One of these species is identical with a species found by Dr. 

 Arthur Willey at three distinct localities in the New Caledonian 

 Archipelago, and of which he has already communicated an 

 account to the " Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science."* 

 Dr. Willey has most kindly sent me his collection for comparison 

 with that made by Mr. Hedley, together with an account of his 

 observations. I am thus enabled to speak definitely on the identity 

 of these two forms. Willey has referred the species concerned 

 provisionally to Ptychodera flava, Eschscholtz,f recorded from 

 the Romanzoff Group of the Marshall Archipelago in 1825, and 

 has suggested that until the Marshall Islands' form is re-examined 

 it might be advisable to call the New Caledonian form P. flava, 

 caledonica, or simply P. caledonica. Now, however, that the 

 same form has been found to occur at such a distinct and widely 

 separated, but intermediate locality as Funafuti, Willey proposes 

 (in litt.) to drop the name caledonica, and to regard the species, 

 provisionally at least, as P. flava, Eschsch., in the amended 

 sense. 



The specimens of this species obtained by Mr. Hedley do not 

 exceed 3 inches in length. Willey gives 2| inches as the maxi- 

 mum length of unextended specimens obtained at the islet of 

 Amedee, close to Noumea, while specimens found by him later at 



* In the press. 



t J. W. Spengel Die Enteropneusten des Golfes von Neapel, etc. 

 Fauna u. Flora des Golfes von Neapel, 1893. pp. 190-1, fig. P. 



