456 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



SOME JERSEY OLIGOCILETS. 



By the Eev. Hilderic Friend, F.L.S., F.R.M.S. 



Up till the present time only eleven species of Oligochceta 

 have been known to me from Jersey, and these were all Earth- 

 worms or Lumbricidce. Little if any attention has been paid by 

 naturalists to the other groups of terrestrial or freshwater 

 Annelids hitherto, and no one could give the vaguest guess 

 as to their nature or number. It was, therefore, exceedingly 

 gratifying to receive at the beginning of July a large and typical 

 collection made by my indefatigable friend and most expert 

 investigator, Mr. H. Hillman, of Nottingham, ably assisted by 

 Mr. Abbot, of Jersey. Mr. Hillman spent some days on the 

 island during the month of June, and devoted many hours to a 

 systematic search for the smaller species of Annelids, with 

 results which abundantly justified and rewarded his exertions. 

 In the letter which accompanied the gleanings, Mr. Hillman 

 remarks that he captured something every day he was in Jersey. 

 One box contained "collections of all kinds [except cash], 

 mainly from places in the south and east of the island, and up 

 valleys running northwards from the south coast and south- 

 west. They come from broodsides, roadside banks where damp 

 oozes out, gutters in similar places, half rotted heaps of potato 

 haulms (what an odour these possess !), heaps of manure, of 

 dead leaves, amongst roots of plants, moss, pot-plants in a 

 vinery, the manure heap outside the vinery in which vines are 

 growing, amongst algae around roadside drinking troughs, and in 

 a rotted elm. Some of the larger worms I got a friend (Mr. 

 Abbot) to dig for in his garden. In this connection it should be 

 added that the soil of Jersey is very light, full of moles, and, at 

 the present time, desiccated and powdery, so that we dug in 

 several places without finding anything at all, even where the 

 ground was covered with weeds. The other tin box contains a 

 collection of algae, moss, &c, from many places. Some came 



