AUTOLYTUS INERMIS. 247 



process running to the base, which is thus pointed, giving a pseudo-trifid aspect to the 

 terminal piece. The distal end of the shaft of the compound bristles is minutely spinous 

 along both edges. The spine has a terminal mucro, and a single bristle with a pointed 

 terminal piece is present. 



Reproduction. — De St. Joseph observed specimens without swimming bristles 

 carrying greyish ova behind the proventriculus, but he has rarely seen buds, though two 

 short examples with reproduced posterior ends may indicate this condition, and indeed 

 in one specimen of fifty-one segments a bud began at the forty-first. 



Autolytus inermis, De St. Joseph, 1886. Plate LXXXVI, fig. 18 — bristle; Plate 



LXXXVII, fig. 17— foot. 



Specific Characters. — Head with large lateral connate eyes, and traces of a dimple 

 in the centre anteriorly. Colour reddish. Proboscis devoid of teeth and with a 

 distinct rim. Bristles rather long, with somewhat long terminal pieces minutely bifid 

 at the tip. 



Synonyms. 



1886. Autolytus iiiermis, De St. Joseph. Ann. Sc. Nat., 7 e ser., t. i, p. 237, pi. xii ; fig. 117. 

 1908. „ „ Elwes. Journ. M. B. A., n.s., vol. viii, p. 202, 



Habitat. — Between tide-marks, Liver mead, Torquay (Elwes). 



Shores of Dinard, France, rarely dredged on Bytlphlea pinastroides (De St. Joseph). 



Head of the typical form with two very large anterior eyes laterally situated, 

 furnished with lenses and confluent with the posterior eyes, also provided with lenses. 

 De St. Joseph states that the lateral tentacles are a little longer than the median, but 

 this is not the case in the example procured by Major Elwes. A slight notch occurs in 

 the median border anteriorly with traces of a fissure behind. 



Body of a reddish colour, from 3 — 5 mm. in length, slightly tapered in front and more 

 distinctly so posteriorly, and composed of forty-nine bristled segments, the pygiclium 

 having two cirri of moderate length. The characteristic feature, according to De St. 

 Joseph, is the absence of teeth in the proboscis, which is remarkably long and coiled like 

 that of Autolytus longiferiens. It terminates anteriorly in a smooth rim, The pro- 

 ventriculus is ovoid with twenty- five to thirty rows of points, and occupies segments nine 

 to eleven. The hypoderm throughout is remarkably granular and areolar, and the tissues 

 of the annelid are comparatively soft. 



The foot (Plate LXXXVII, fig. 17) is typical, with a group of rather long bristles, 

 having a proportionally long terminal piece and a minutely bifid tip (Plate LXXXVI, 

 fig. 18). The first dorsal cirri are the longest, and the rest are comparatively short. 



De St. Joseph found two examples with male stolons of two regions. In the first 

 nurse-stock of twenty-seven segments the stolon had thirty-one segments ; in the second 

 the nurse-stock had thirty-one segments and the stolon thirty segments, the first three in 

 the stolon devoid of natatory bristles. In the example from Torquay sperm-cells appear 

 to be present posteriorly. 



