1906. 
179 
NOTCS ON THE GENUS KNCHYTR.EUS, 
WITH DEvSCRIPTlOX OF A NKW vSPECIES. 
BY ROWLAND SOUTHERN. 
There are at the present claymore than 100 species of the 
Famih^ Enchytraeidae known, of which the larger number 
are recorded from Europe. Of these, only twelve have been 
recorded from Great Britain, whilst the Irish list contain:-* only 
seven species. This deplorable state of affairs is not due to 
the poverty of our fauna, but to the lack of interest shown by 
Irish natuialists in the Oligochaeta. Since the time of Robert 
Templeton, in the early part of last century, no naturalist 
has worked at the Iiish Oligochseta, till a few 3'ears ago, when 
the Rev. Hilderic Friend published several papers in the 
Irish Nafuralisf, and in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish 
Academy. He confined his attention chiefly to the 
Lumbricidae, or Earth-worms proper, but he also recorded 
seven species belonging to the family- Enchytraeidae, one of 
which, Fridcricia iilmicola, was new to science'. In the genus 
Enchytraeus, with which this paper is chiefly concerned, he 
recorded a species under the name of Enchyirceiis parvulus-. 
He has since recognised that this species is identical with one 
described by Michaelsen, viz., Enchytrcsus argcnteus'. 
The members of the family Enchytraeidae are characterised 
by the possession of .short setae, not bifid at the extremity. 
The testes are in the eleventh segment, the male pores on the 
twelfth segment. Spermathecae usually one pair in the fifth 
segment, opening on the intersegment 4-5. They are terres- 
trial, aquatic, or littoral worms 
In the genus Enchytraeus, the setae of each bundle are of 
equal length, straight in the shaft, only hooked at the internal 
end. There are four bundles of setae in each segment, two 
ventral and two lateral. Salivar}' glands are present^ and the 
oesophagus passes gradually into the intestine. 
I have now to record three species of the genus Enchytraeus 
new to the Irish fauna, one oT which is also new to science. 
^ //-. Nat., 1898, p. T95, Vr, ^Viz/., 1902, p. no. = Tierreich, vol x.. p. 91. 
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