THE NEMERTINES OF MILLPORT AND ITS VICINITY. 15 
Amphiporus lactifloreus (Johnst.). 
Fairly common at and near Millport. 
Length, #-5 inches; breadth, average, 1-14 mm.; body dorso-ventrally flattened ; 
head slightly expanded, frequently somewhat diamond-shaped with a blunt point 
anteriorly ; the hinder end does not taper to a point. 
The animals contract very markedly on interference, and assume a slug-like shape ; 
a specimen an inch and a half long will shorten to a third of an inch. The surface 
secretes a very sticky mucus. Progression may take place by an equable gliding, or by 
the passage over the body of a series of contractile waves; or the head may craw] 
evenly while the tail executes swimming movements. 
Two varieties of colowr were met with; the first includes specimens from a light 
purple to a delicate French grey ; the second includes forms which may be described as 
cream, yellow, pale orange, or pale flesh colour. The posterior part of the body is often 
darker than the anterior ; there is a white line, due to the proboscis, down the middle 
of the dorsum, and the margins of the animal are paler or more translucent. 
The cephalic grooves are in two pairs, an anterior and a posterior. The anterior 
notch the margin of the head at its widest part, and are continued thence somewhat 
backwards on the dorsal, obliquely forwards on the ventral surface. ‘The posterior pass 
obliquely backwards on the dorsal, transversely on the ventral surface, and nearly meet 
those of the opposite side in the middle line both dorsally and ventrally. 
The above description of the grooves agrees in the main with that of MacInrosu, 
who, however, states that the anterior grooves run forwards on the dorsal surface, not 
backwards. Jovustn (8), on the contrary, shows quite a different form for the posterior 
grooves, which, in his specimens, had on both dorsal and ventral surfaces something 
the shape of the letter M. 
The eyes are usually, not always, in two groups on each side, which are divided 
by the anterior furrows; I have never seen three groups. The number of the eyes 
varies very much; the smallest numbers I have noted are three in each anterior, 
two in each posterior group, or ten in all; but twenty-four, twenty-seven, thirty-four, 
and thirty-six are met with. The largest eyes are in the posterior group. It may be 
mentioned that BUrcer’s Naples specimens possessed a very large number of . eyes, 
twenty in each of four groups. 
Another, and a more important, variation between the Naples and the Millport 
specimens has to do with the shape of the basis of the stylet. This is shown by 
Bureer as being markedly constricted a little posterior to the middle of its length ; 
its thickness is about equal in front of and behind the constriction ; since, however, 
according to the figure, the constriction is nearer the posterior end, the anterior portion 
of the basis is the bulkier. A similar description (‘‘plumpe Sockel, in der Mitte 
ringsum eingeschniirt, vorn und hinten, fast gleich dick”) is repeated in the specific 
diagnosis given in the Tzerreich. 
