1900.] ON THE EARTHWORMS OF THE '' SKEAT EXPEDITION." 891 



5. Ou the Earthworms collected during the u Skeat Expedi- 

 tion" to the Malay Peninsula, 1899-3900. By Frank 

 E. Beddard, M.A., F.R.S. 



[Received November 20, 1900.] 



The Earthworms upon which I now report were collected hy 

 Mr. R. Evans of Oxford, during the Skeat Expedition in the 

 Malay Peninsula. They belong for the most part to the charac- 

 teristic and abundant Oriental genus Amyntas. 



The collection contains, however, a number of examples of the 

 ubiquitous Pontoscolex corethrura and of a small Benhamia. Since 

 so many species of Amyntas are now known — I allow 109 or so in 

 my recently published l revision of the genus — I was not pre- 

 pared for the large number of novelties that occur in the collection. 

 It must be remembered, however, that this region of Asia has 

 been but little explored from the point of view of its earthworm 

 fauna. 



It is also important to notice that the greater proportion of the 

 entire list of species recorded here are peculiar to the mainland, 

 and do not, so far as is known at present, occur upon the islands 

 of the Malay Archipelago ; these latter are regarded by Michaelsen, 

 and apparently with justice, as the headquarters of the genus 

 Amyntas. Further to the west, though still in the Oriental 

 Region of zoogeographers, the genus becomes scarcer and scarcer, 

 the forms occurring in India itself and in Ceylon being but very 

 rarely peculiar forms 2 , and being far from numerous altogether. 



It is interesting to find that the condition hitherto peculiar to 

 A. stelleri, A. phakellotheca, and A. hiserialis, of an increased 

 number of spermathecse in each segment, is also characteristic of 

 A. minutus and A. polytheca described as new species in the 

 present communication. The interest lies of course partly in the 

 more widely-spread occurrence of this geoscolecid characteristic, 

 but also in the fact that small species like the two described here 

 may show a character which is more intelligible in a large species 

 such as A. stetteri, where there is more room for a reduplication 

 of these organs. 



Another novelty of structure for the group which is recorded in 

 the present communication, is the curious intersegmental position, 

 and the single row, of numerous genital papill*, which is the 

 principal characteristic of the new species A. evansi. 1 am not 

 aware that any closely similar arrangement of such papilhc occurs 

 elsewhere among Earthworms of this genus. 



The large size of the various organs belonging to the repro- 

 ductive system is, as a very general rule, a marked feature in the 



1 P. Z. S. 1900, p. 009. 



2 Iu Ceylon there is only A. taprobanm (Beddard, P. Z. S. 1892, p. 103) and 

 iu India only A. alexandri (Beddard, P. Z. S. 1900, below), and A. travail- 

 corensis (Fedarb, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Sue. xi. p. 435), which occur in those 

 regions and are not found elsewhere. 



