142 Memoirs of the Indian Museum. [Voi,. V, 



ocean. Probably shore-birds also contribute to their dispersal by carrying away 

 cocoons which adhere in a chance manner to their feet. That such a trans-oceanic 

 dispersal of littoral Oligochaeta is a fact may be seen from the case of geologically 

 recent and isolated oceanic islands ; these contain (apart from forms demonstrably 

 introduced by man) no terrestrial Oligochaeta, but are colonized by littoral species, 

 e.g. the small coral island L,aysan of the Hawaiian Archipelago by a species of 

 Pontodrilus" (Michaelsen, Die geographische Verbreitung der Oligochaeten, 1903). So 

 the genus Pontodrilus is apparently distributed over the coasts of all the warmer 

 portions of the globe; while Enchytraeus albidus is found from Nova Zembla and 

 Greenland to South Patagonia and Kerguelen Is. 



Family ENCHYTRAEIDAE. 



Genus ENCHYTRAEUS, Henle. 



Enchytraeus barkudensis, sp. nov. 



(Plate X, figs. 1-4.) 



Types.— Barkuda Island, Chilka Lake, Ganjam Dist., Madras Presidency. In 

 sand at edge of lake ; 16-VÜ-1914. Five specimens (Reg. No. ZHV 6545/7, Ind- Mus.). 



Length 15 mm. Filiform, breadth about 3 mm. Colour light brown. Seg- 

 ments 57-64. 



The prostomium is rounded and very short. 



The setae are of the same type (Enchytraeus type) in both lateral and ventral 

 bundles; they are blunt rods, straight except for a curve at the inner or proximal 

 end. In both lateral and ventral bundles they are three per bundle in segments 

 ii— xi; segment xii has lateral bundles consisting each of two setae, but no ventral 

 bundles ; from segment xiii onwards the setae are two per bundle, both laterally and 

 ventrally. 



The clitellum is not distinguishable. 



Not much of the anatomy of the worms could be observed with accuracy in the 

 entire specimens, and most of the following account is based on the examination of 

 longitudinal sections. 



The septa in the anterior region are much bulged backwards, especially 7/8, 8/9, 

 and 9/10, which form deep pockets filled with coelomic corpuscles. These three 

 septa are also considerably thickened as compared with the others, and form stout 

 sheets of muscular fibres (cf. septum 9/10 in fig. 2). 



The coelomic corpuscles (fig. 2) are numerous and conspicuous even in the entire 

 animal; they are nucleated flattened plates, oval or broadly spindle-shaped, of an 

 average length (in the fixed and stained condition) of 28/* ; the maximum length 

 observed was 41^. 



The pharynx (fig. 1) occupies segments ii and iii; it has the usual constitution, 

 the epithelium of the roof being markedly columnar and forming a sucker-like plate. 

 The oesophagus is a narrow and uniform straight tube, ciliated throughout, and 

 showing no differentiation ; it passes fairly suddenly into the intestine, distinguish- 



