112 ALCIOPIML 



No member of the Alciopidse has yet been met with in British waters, but there is 

 no reason why such may not be found — e. g. off the southern shores of England or off the 

 west coast of Ireland, as at Valencia. The remarkable fauna — both littoral and pelagic 

 — of the latter region would lend countenance to this expectation ; as also would that 

 occasionally found in the Moray Frith. 



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Fig. 45.— Peculiar pelagic type near Syllidse and Alciopidse. The caudal cirri are reduced. 



In this connection, a minute form (fig. 45), about an eighth of an inch in length, 

 found in the tow-net in St. Andrews Bay, in July or August, 1900, may be mentioned, 

 especially as it does not conform, so far as can be ascertained, to any known species. At 

 first sight it may be mistaken for Ioida, but a close inspection shows its marked distinction 

 from that form and from the Syllidas, as well as its separation from the Phyllodocidge and 

 Hesionidse. Unfortunately it had been stained and mounted in balsam before it came 

 under observation, so that the precise structure of the feet and the more delicate processes 

 has yet to be worked out. 



The head somewhat resembles that of Ioida in carrying two large black eyes on the 

 dorsum, and apparently another pair on the ventral surface. The head-region is small 

 and deeply cleft in the middle line, the two lateral flaps (one on each side) on which the 

 eyes are situated being slightly angular in front, and trending from the median fissure 

 outward and backward, the central part being coarsely fibrillated, as if from ruptured 



