426 Fti'ciid : T/ic Auiiclid Fauna of Worcestershire. 



More recent research has led to the further sphtting up of 

 the genus AUoIobopliova, so that we have learned to use such 

 terms as Dendrohcuna, Eophila and Helodrikts, Octolasion, 

 Hypogaeon and Aporrcctodea, Eisenia and Bimastus ; while 

 Alliirus has been changed to Eiseniella. If these changes are 

 at times confusing, they at any rate serve to indicate that our 

 knowledge of the subject is more extensive than of old, while 

 they also remind us that the student of system finds wide 

 differences between species which seemed at one time to be very 

 nearly related. 



So far as our native species of Lumhvicus are concerned, they 

 are clearh^ defined and readily identified. They may be said 

 to consist of terrestrial annelids of a purplish colour, with some- 

 what flattened tails, a head or prostomium which entirely 

 bisects the first segment or peristomium ; and having a girdle 

 which is uniformly composed of six segm.ents, the four innermost 

 of which carry the tubercula puhertatis. The male pore is on 

 the fifteenth segment, and is conspicuous in some species, but 

 obscure in others. 



There are but five species of Lumhricus at present known 

 in the British Isles, and one of these (Lumhvicus friendi Cognetti) 

 which I first discovered and described some years ago (as 

 Lumbyicus papillosus Friend), is at present knowm 'only in the 

 South of Ireland in the British Isles, and has only been found 

 elsewhere at considerable elevations in the Pyrenees and the 

 Alps.'* 



The remaining species, four in number, are all found in 

 Worcestershire. I have not made an exhaustive survey of the 

 county, and cannot therefore give a long list of localities ; but 

 this hardly seems necessary in the case of species which are 

 so generally and widely distributed. It may be well, perhaps, 

 to add the characteristics of each species. 



I. LuMBRicus TERRESTRis L., is the largest English species 

 of the true Lumbrici. It sometimes attains a length of six or 

 more inches, and preserved specimens range from six to fifteen 

 centimetres. Eisen speaks of examples from Scandinavia, 

 which are twice that length, and have more than six segments 

 to the girdle. He is a good observer, but I fancy his record was 

 an early one, made when there was much confusion between 

 this species and Allolobophora longa Ude. I have never, in all 



* Southern, Contributions towards the British and Irish Oligochcsta, 1909. 



Naturalist, 



