ANNELID BIONOMICS. 249 
It is sincerely to be hoped that the means may be forthcoming 
which will enable some institution or expert to carry out the 
research which is necessary in order to solve some of these 
problems in Annelid Bionomics. 
It will readily be seen that the best way to carry out research 
in this subject would be in the field rather than in the laboratory. 
If an expert, possessed of the necessary knowledge of indigenous 
species, and a good working acquaintance with the facts already 
accumulated at home and abroad, could be set apart for work on 
purely independent lines, under the control of the Board of 
Agriculture, he might in some three years be in a position to 
present a report such as no country hitherto has received on the 
subject of Annelid Bionomics. 
It would probably be discovered that many more Oligochets 
exist in certain soils than we have in the past suspected. I have 
been greatly astonished at the variety of species which occur in 
certain clays and loams, gravelly and other soils, where formerly 
it was thought that they were entirely wanting. Most of these 
species are at present little known, and their life-history (as in 
the case of Helodrilus oculatus, Hoffm.) is wrapped in obscurity. 
