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STUDIES IN GAEDEN ANNELIDS : THE BOTANIC 

 GARDENS, OXFORD. 



By the Rev. Hilderic Friend, F.R.M.S. 



During recent years quite a number of new worms have 

 been described by me in these columns. The articles, however, 

 have usually been confined to a somewhat systematic account of 

 individuals or their distribution, and hitherto little has been 

 done to show what Annelids maybe found in gardens as a whole. 

 It is proposed, therefore, to study the subject of garden worms 

 from a new standpoint, and give an account of the principal 

 forms to be met with- in some of the best known gardens in the 

 country. Having recently paid special visits to Leicestershire, 

 Notts, Oxfordshire, Sussex, Ireland, and other places for the 

 study of Annelid Economics and Bionomics, I have been able, 

 by aid of a Government Grant, to add greatly to our knowledge 

 of this important subject in relation to agriculture and horti- 

 culture, and I am anxious that gardeners in particular should 

 know a little about a theme which has been far too little studied. 

 Perhaps I cannot do better than begin with an account of some 

 of the Annelids to be found in the Botanic Gardens at Oxford. 

 It is many years since my attention was first directed to 

 this interesting spot, as was shown in 'The Zoologist' (ante, 

 pp, 70-1). It is nearly ten years since I gave, in the ' Gardener's 

 Chronicle,' an account of some of these creatures (March 12th, 

 1904), while in a later issue (Nov. 27th, 1909) a worm new to 

 science was described from these gardens. They were revisited 

 during the month of April last, and the study was extended to 

 the Whiteworms, or Enchytrseids, and the Waterworms. Up 

 till that date fifteen species of Lumbricidce had been recorded, 

 but nothing was known of the two other families. We are 

 still in total ignorance of the Oxford Naididce, Lumbriculidce, 

 and other families, but these are not of general interest to 

 gardeners. 



