1922.] J. Stephenson : Earthivorms from Kashmir & India. 429 



species here recorded from Kashmir appears to be new, and 

 therefore possibly endemic. These justify the inclusion of this 

 region, at least provisionally, in the territory of the Lumbricinae. 

 Simla, the summer capital of India, and the surrounding area 

 in the W. Himalayas, swarm, as might be expected, with peregrine 

 Lumbricines, from which no zoogeographieal conclusions can be 

 drawn. But here too a new and possibly endemic IyUtnbricine is 

 now found to occur (Helodrilus (Dendrobaena) kempi y v. infra) ; 

 the W. Himalayas may thus probably be added to the proper 

 territory of the Lumbricinae. The extreme outpost of the sub- 

 family appears to be Calcutta, whence Helodrilus (Bimaslus) 

 indicus was described some years ago by Michaelsen (3). These 

 four species are the only endemic Lumbricinae so far known in 

 India. 



The Polyphyletic Origin of the genus Megascolex. 



That the genus Megascolex is polyphyletic, i.e. that different 

 species of the genus have arisen in different places, at different 

 times, and from different ancestors, is already recognized. Mi- 

 chaelsen (5) has pointed out the close relation of certain S. Indian 

 species of Megascolex to certain S. Indian species of Noloscolex 

 (the group of Megascolex travancorensis to that of Notoscolex 

 ponmudianus), and argues that these species of Megascolex have 

 in all probability arisen from the local representatives of Notoscolex. 

 There is also a similar correspondence between species of Notoscolex 

 and species of Megascolex in another restricted area, the N. Island 

 of New Zealand ; here, too, the inference is that the latter have 

 arisen from the former. I have shown (11) that a worm which is 

 by definition a Megascolex has descended from some species of 

 Perionyx, in a region more than a thousand miles away from the 

 proper Indian Megascolex territory ; and have in the same paper 

 given some reason for thinking that certain species of Megascolex 

 may be descended from still another genus Spenceriella. 



Perhaps the clearest case of an independent origin of a species 

 of Megascolex, however, is that of Megascolex horai, described 

 below. The worm has certain remarkable peculiarities ; it is 

 unique in the genus in having the male pores on segment xvii, one 

 segment in front of the normal position for the genus ; and both 

 male and female organs are found, on dissection, to be shifted 

 one segment forwards. There are also well marked and stalked 

 calciferous glands in segments x, xi and xii ; such stalked calci- 

 ferous glands scarcely occur elsewhere amongst the Indian species 

 of Megascolex. 



Now a small group of species of Noloscolex has exactly these 

 same characters ; and here too the species (Noloscolex oneilli, 

 slewarli, and strialus) are peculiar in these respects in their genus. 

 The species of Notoscolex were found in the Abor country in the 

 Assamese Himalayas ; Megascolex horai was taken at Cherrapunji, 

 also in Assam (though not in the Himalayas), more than a thousand 



