SCLEROCHEILUS MINUTUS. 43 



Synonyms. 



1863. Sclerocheilus minutus, Grube. Arch. f. Naturges., Bd. 29, p. 50, Taf. v, fig. 3. 



1864. ,, ,, idem. Die Insel Lussin, p. 85. 



1865. „ „ De Quatrefages. Annel., t. ii, p. 280. 



1869. ., „ Grube. Abhandl. Schles. GeselL, 1868— 69, p. 127. 



„ „ „ idem. Mitt. St. Vaast, p. 37. 



„ „ ,, idem. Jahresb. Schles. (resell., p. 41. 



1875. „ „ Marion and Bobretzky. Ann. Sc. nat., 6 me ser., t. ii, p. 86. 



1879. ,. „ idem. Ibid., t. viii, p. 5. 



1885. , ,, Cams. Fauna Medit., p. 251. 



1894. „ „ De St. Joseph. Ann. Sc. nat., 7 e ser., t, xvii, p. 104, pi. v, fig. 126— 



145. 



1904. „ „ Journ. M. B. A., vol. vii, p. 231. 



1908. „ „ Mcintosh. Ann. Nat. Hist., 8 ser., vol. i, p. 380. 



1914. ,, „ Southern. Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., vol. xxxi, pt. 47, p. 137. 



Habitat. — Procured in a trammel-net off Fermain Bay, Guernsey. Tbe net bad 

 touched the ground and entangled an old valve of Pecten operculars richly covered with 

 various growths. Also under stones between tide-marks, Herm, 1868. Plymouth (Allen). 

 Clare Island (Southern). Abroad it has been found at Lussin Piccolo, Crivizza, Cigale, 

 Neresine, on the Adriatic (Grube). Shores of France, Dinard (De St. Joseph). St. Vaast 

 (Grube). Marseilles (Marion). 



Head furnished with two well-marked though not long tentacles, and two brownish- 

 red ocular bands which form an acute angle by union in front. 



Body about three quarters of an inch long, segments 40-50, somewhat fusiform, and 

 resembling a small Scalibregma, slightly tapered anteriorly and more so posteriorly, the 

 surface being minutely tesselated and marked by transverse furrows. It is flanked by 

 rather long tufts of pale resplendent bristles and a series of short foot-lobes. Posteriorly 

 it terminates in an anal segment provided with five slender cirri. The body has a 

 uniform dull brick-red colour, or very pale brownish-red, more deeply tinted here and 

 there on the dorsum from the blood-vessel. The ccelomic bodies are pale. The mouth 

 opens on the under surface of the peristomial segment in the form of a broad A in the 

 spirit-preparations, the angle directed forward. De St. Joseph describes the proboscis as 

 a rounded, unarmed, muscular process larger than the head and ciliated internally, and it 

 is followed by a short pharynx, a dilated oesophagus, a stomach, and a ciliated intestine 

 which shows folds and pouches and contains air and water, so that the author thinks the 

 posterior region respiratory. He considers that the circulation is lacunar, the spaces 

 uniting here and there to form vessels, though some spaces are always isolated. At the 

 eighth or ninth segment they constitute a dorsal vessel which becomes bifid at the third 

 segment, and the two trunks form the ventral. Branches from the ventral go transversely 

 to the feet and the intestine, the latter twigs communicating with the lacunas on the walls 

 of the gut. The ventral vessel is lost in lacunas posteriorly. 



Feet. — The first segment is achastous. The second has dorsally a foot-papilla 

 bearing simple bristles, ventrally a papilla holding a series of five or six stout simple 

 bristles finely tapered at the curved tip (Plate CHI, fig. 8 a), though sometimes more or 



