254 
Dr. John SON* s further observations 
P. nigra. 
Planana oblonga, nigerrima, antice truncata. 
Long. 5 lin. Lat, 2 tin. 
Body, of a fine glossy velvety black, convex above, with 
an elevated ridge in the centre ; plain beneath, truncated 
before, slightly pointed behind ; two ventral foramina ; 
numerous eyes. 
This little animal, of which a front view is given of its 
natural size in fig. 9. is the most sluggish and inactive of all 
the planarice I have yet examined. It is commonly found in 
ditches, attached to the under part of leaves, stones, &c. ; it is 
often seen traversing the surface of the water in an inverted 
position like the glossoporce. 
This species, like those formerly described, is furnished 
with a retractile trumpet-shaped proboscis, issuing from a cir- 
cular aperture in the middle of the abdomen, and so capable 
of extension, when in search of food, as to equal in length 
the animal itself. A delineation of this curious apparatus, 
(which I shall in future take as a characteristic type of the 
genus I am describing) is given in a magnified view of the 
under part of one of these planarise in fig. 10. 
. This singular apparatus by means, of which these animals 
take their food, is not the least of the many strange features 
in their history ; it is indeed so far removed from the com- 
mon mode of receiving aliment, that doubts might well be 
entertained as to its real office, were it not clearly pointed 
out by Muller, and the ingenious author of the work to which 
we have recently alluded. 
The P. nigra is oviparous ; each ovum, or more properly 
