88 FRIEND: NEW YORKSHIRE EARTHWORMS. 
as the gilt-tail, no one has attempted to determine it scientifically. _ 
Moreover, both at home and abroad the worm has been so often 
confused with another new Yorkshire species (A//olobophora boeckii ) 
that the literature of the subject is inextricably tangled. It is 
necessary to remark in passing that the method of notation employed 
by Eisen differs from that in use among English systematists, which 
will account for the apparent differences between his figures and 
those which I shall employ in the description which follows. 
A. subrubicunda is a delicate, soft worm about 2 inches in length 
—sometimes larger in a well-developed specimen, but averaging 
14 inches in length when placed in spirits. It is of a warm brown 
colour on the back, with a ruddy-yellow tail, and prominent light- 
coloured girdle, which normally covers segments 26 to 32. he 
adjoining segments are, however, often affected, so that the girdle or 
clitellum may appear to cover them as well. The under-surface of 
the worm’s body is flattened and light-coloured, the lip is colourless 
and tender, and only partially cuts the first segment or peristomium. 
The dorsal pores are easily seen, the first being found behind seg- 
ment 5. This is expressed by the fractional sign $. The male 
pores are on segment 15, and the next segment behind is swollen or 
tumid in adult specimens, so that it may easily be mistaken for the 
segment carrying the male pores. Penial setze occur on segment 9 ; 
there is a glandular ridge extending from the male pore to the girdle, 
and under the latter organ the band forming the Zudercula pubertatis 
extends from segments 28 to 30. The total number of segments in 
an adult specimen ranges from about go to 120, or an average of 100. 
There is a tendency for the sete to form eight rows, instead of falling 
into four couples, as in the common earthworm. In this it resembles 
A. boeckit more nearly than any other species. Like the Brandling, 
Mucous Worm, and Green Worm, it exudes a yellow fluid when 
irritated, but while the foregoing can usually eject it from all the 
segments, this species secretes it only from the head and tail. 
The internal characteristics are interesting, but I shall not allude 
to them, as external distinctions suffice to separate it definitely from 
all others, however closely they may resemble it at first sight. I am, 
moreover, publishing a series of articles in which critical genera 
will be compared and contrasted, and this species will then come 
in for fuller treatment. 
As already indicated, this worm is often confused with A//olobo- 
phora boeckit (Eisen), which also is now to be recorded for Yorkshire. 
I discovered it (as reported in ‘ The Naturalist,’ 1891, p. 277) on the 
banks of the river Wharfe, between The Strid and Bolton Abbey, on 
July 7th of last year, but as the species is well known to helmin-— 
_ Naturalist, 
