TITANOSOMA AND POLYMICRODON IN ENGLAND 151 



and distally between the telopodites is drawn out as a channel. 

 Although the telopodites are sharply enough marked off from 

 the syncoxite, they do not appear to be capable of any move- 

 ment upon the latter ; their fusion with the syncoxite is evident 

 both from in front and behind in the depth of the channel-like 

 groove. 



The telopodite may best be compared with two inverted 

 drinking-horns grown together where they expand to form the 

 cup. Their cavities are almost hemispherically shaped, and 

 obviously serve for the reception of the sperm. This 

 assumption is at any rate fully justified by analogy with other 

 Diplopods, in which sperm has often been detected in similar 

 cavities of the gonopods. The cavities are well protected 

 through the fact that their openings are directed basally, and 

 that the three processes on the front ridge of the syncoxite 

 rise up opposite to them. Strong muscles run from the crests 

 of the sternite of the anterior gonopod to the base of the side 

 processes in front of the syncoxite, and to internal pegs (z) 

 which occur between these processes and the sternite. 



Occurrence: For the single known example of this genus — 

 a male — I am indebted to Mr. R. S. Bagnall, who collected it 

 in Gibside, Co. Durham, in the North of England. Gibside 

 is an old piece of woodland chiefly consisting of beeches. 

 Its occurrence in such a situation is evidence that we are 

 dealing with a form which is truly endemic in England. 



The discovery is of very special interest, and is important 

 both from a geographical and a biological point of view ; 

 geographically, because this form is up to the present quite 

 isolated, and England during the Ice Age was furthermore 

 only free from ice in its most southerly part; biologically, 

 because so far, among the many Ascospermophora, only 

 a single blind form has been found at the surface of 

 the ground, viz., the still very problematical " Scotherpes " 

 mamillatum of E. Haase from Upper Silesia. Unfortunately 

 Haase (according to his own account), in making his prepara- 

 tion of this precious animal, lost certain organs, so that his 



