464 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NEW BEITISH HENLEAS. 

 By Hilderic Friend, F.L.S., F.E.M.S. 



The list of British OligochsGts is steadily growing. Aided by 

 a Government grant, I have this year been able to adopt means 

 whereby the minuter species are easily discovered, and it is here 

 that our richest harvests are at present being gleaned. The 

 genus Henlea was created by Michtelsen in 1889, in honour of 

 the naturalist Henle. It consists of a number of Enchytrseids 

 with colourless blood, simple spermathecse destitute of diverti- 

 cula, and nephridia whose anteseptal portion is small. There 

 are no dorsal pores, the oesophagus goes suddenly into the 

 intestine in the eighth or adjoining segments, in which the dorsal 

 vessel arises. 



Beddard's splendid ' Monograph of the Order Oligochseta ' 

 (published in 1895) gives us four species as being then well- 

 known, while reference is made to others which were doubtful. 

 There was nothing, however, to suggest that any one of these was 

 to be found in England, though all were known to be European. 

 I had, however, in 1892 found one species {Henlea ventriculosa, 

 d'Ud.) in Yorkshire and Essex, and in 1896 I again discovered it 

 at Cockermouth. In the former year I also obtained specimens 

 of another species {H. leptodera, Vejdovsky, = H. nasuta, Eisen) 

 between Woodhouse Grove and Bradford, as well as from Essex, 

 while I found it again in Cumberland in 1896 (see * The Natura- 

 list,' 1896, p. 298, and 'Essex Naturalist,' 1896, vol. ix. p. 110). 

 These were, I believe, the first British records. 



In 1907 Mr. Southern (' Irish Naturalist,' xvi. p. 70) con- 

 firmed my first record by the statement that he had found it in 

 various parts of Ireland. At the same time he reported the 

 occurrence of a further species {H. dicksoni, Eisen), and described 

 a new species {H. hibernica, Southern) . Thus we find that in 1907 

 four species of Henlea were known. Southern gives these, with 

 localities, in his useful * Contributions towards a Monograph of 

 British and Irish Oligochseta, 1909.' 



