X. — Supplement to the Marine Kemerteans and Planarians 

 OF New England. By A. E. Verrill. 



A paper on these two groups was published by Dr. Charles Girard 

 in the Annals des Sciences Naturelles,* almost simultaneously with 

 my own articles in vol. viii of these Transactions, His paper, 

 which was intended to include all the species known from our 

 eastern coast, is partly a reprint of his own brief descriptions, 

 published while in this country about forty years ago, and partly a 

 compilation of the later descriptions of other authors. It contains, 

 therefore, very little in the way of new observations or facts. The 

 recent great advances in the knowledge of the anatomy and classifi- 

 cation of these groupsHs almost entirely ignored. f Consequently 

 the classification of each group is entirely artificial, both as to the 

 higher divisions and as to the genera and species. Several species 

 of the Nemerteans appear under two or more different genera, partly 

 owing to their compilation from different authors, without a personal 

 knowledge of the species, but in some cases owing to lack of suffi- 

 cient care in regard to the published synonymy given by recent 

 authors. In several cases mere color-varieties are raised to the rank 

 of species. From these two causes the total number of enumerated 

 species is much too large. A few species that had already been 

 named and described by rae have also received new names. As 

 Dr. Girard has not seen the specimens, such species are sometimes 

 referred to wrong genera. 



Owing to the great amount of confusion that has thus been intro- 

 duced into the synonymy of our species, I have thought it desir- 

 able to give a list of the east-coast forms catalogued by him, with 

 the names that they bear in my recent articles. 



* The first part, pp. 145 to 192, is dated June, 1893; the second part, pp. 193 to 

 310, is dated Oct., 1893. A copy of the author's extra was received by me, Oct., 1893. 



f For instance the groups Enopla, Anopla, Paleoneraertea, and Schizonemertea are 

 ignored. The mouth is sometimes described as the genital orifice, and the proboscis- 

 pore is sometimes called the mouth (see under Neesia). Such errors are doubtless 

 due in most cases to the fact that many of the old descriptions are reprinted without 

 critical revision. 



