52 General Notes. [January, 



A Marine Planariax and its Habitation.— In June, 1881, a 

 very large female specimen of the common horse-shoe crab ( Lim- 

 ulus polyphemus) came into my hands, 1 on the gills of which I 

 observed a number of brown small bodies like seeds of some 

 plant, together with living whitish worms, a dendroccelous Plana- 

 rian, the Bdclloura Candida Girard. 2 



These worms were of various sizes, the largest (Fig. 1 ; side), 

 measuring i6 mm in length and about 6 mm in width, by about i mm 

 in thickness. They moved slowly and snail-like over the large 

 lamellous gills, their body-margin, especially the anterior portion, 

 having undulating motions, these being respiratory movements. 

 On placing them in alcohol they became considerably wrinkled 

 and contracted. The larger ones had 



t neither cephalic notches (which occur in 



some members of this family), nor eye-dots. 

 The dorsal side showed a faint line running 

 ^1 - along and close to the entire margin. A 

 1 ''■ '■■'.V. \ large round muscular bag occasionally pro- 



:ruded 3 from a little behind the middle of 

 :he ventral surface ; this is the pharynx. 



In alcoholic specimens a second roundish 



smaller opening could be seen a little be- 



lind the pharynx, the genital orifice. The 



alimentary svstem had about ten or eleven 



V£ '-■ -\;---7 A lateral sacs. * 



WfS The seed- like brown bodies found to- 



Wm gether with the Planarians, I immediately 



took for their egg-cases, which proved to 



Fig. i.— Young Planari*, be correct upon opening some of them 



;i " ! " ' ''-'• ' x; ( ul,K '• <• whence one or two young Planarians could 



/',./ i's,'" be taken. They were of a cream color and 



wax opening; g, male more transparent than their parents. But 



strange enough, they had a pair of distinct 



:'• ■;'!■'•!! -i,n ''i!, L ,v ailuonn e y c "-dot.s, which, I presume, in the adult 



.:,ni. have degenerated. 



The pharynx, the genital orifice and even 

 the genital gland (Fig. 1 g) could be recognized. From analogy, 

 I infer the latter to be the male organs, the female glands having 

 escaped my observation, since our worm is hermaphroditic. The 

 movements of these young worms were more rapid than in the 

 older ones. 



The egg- cases were of various sizes, by far the greatest num- 

 ber, however, being 3.5o ram in length (excluding the stem), by 

 l.50 mm in width. They were plano-convex, the latter exteriorly. 

 the former towards the gills. They consisted of a brown, homo- 



1 From Theo. C. Hepp, M.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. 



2 Identified by Professor A. S. Packard, Jr. 

 s In alcoholic specimens in every case. 



