260 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
edge of the reef, in about 2 fathoms of water, entangled in an inextricable mass. Where 
they have freedom they move through the water in a spiral manner. He describes the 
males as light brown (buff ?) and the females as green, and mentions that both sexes 
rapidly break up in the sea, “ by a natural process by which the species is propagated.” 
Specimens which he kept in an aquarium also broke in pieces, and he did not succeed in 
rearing the ova. His statistics in regard to the appearance of the Palolo are both 
numerous and valuable.^ 
Lately further observations on the Palolo have been made by the Eev. T. Powell, of 
Samoa. ^ He gives the length as from 1 to 20 inches, and the diameter from to 
of an inch, so that the form must sometimes attain a very considerable size. Those 
hitherto sent to this country are small. There are four shades, viz., white, light brown 
or ochre, greyish indigo, and dark green ; the two former colours being males, the latter 
females. He remarks that the sete in some move with great rapidity in all directions 
like “the cilia of a rotifer,” a somewhat striking comparison. He made the interesting 
observation that it is not necessary for the Palolo to. break up to discharge its repro- 
ductive elements, for several complete forms sent out streams of ova and spermatozoa 
through what he terms the oviducts and seminal ducts “which extend on each side 
from the centre of the back, between each pair of somites, and terminate on the 
under side between each pair of lateral appendages.” Moreover, he caught many 
on the PaZoZo-ground almost free from sexual elements, and yet entire as regards 
their segments. 
The Palolo moves through the water in a serpentine manner, but in rising from the 
bottom it assumes a somewhat spiral form. This author also notices the acute sight of 
the Annelids and their activity in escaping capture. An observation he makes about the 
tail being furnished with a “disk or the power of forming itself into one” is obscure, 
though he probably means that the anus is suctorial, for no special apparatus of this 
nature is apj)arent, and it certainly does not require such to hold on to its tube in the 
coral, for it is provided with a far more efficient method. 
Mr. Powell observes that the natives are generally correct in predicting the appear- 
ance of the Palolo, taking, as an indication of the approach of the season, the appearance 
1 In the collection of the British Museum are several specimens presented by W. Wykeham Perry, Esq., in 1875, 
from Mota Island, New Hebrides, and of which it is recorded that “I found these Annelids on the coral beach at 
Mota. They were plentiful, though difficult to hud, or rather get out of the holes in the coral, to which they adhered 
with their legs. They present every resemblance to Palolo. The natives call them A’oon, and say they eat them. I 
succeeded in getting three or four entire specimens from the coral-rock left exposed at low water.” The specimens 
referred to are long dark bluish-green Phyllodocidse, with beautiful iridescent tints. The head has four lobate tentacular 
cirri at the tip of the snout, three lobate tentacular cirri laterally on each side, and a more slender one dorsaUy, 
behind and to the inner side of each upper process. The body is nearly 13 inches in length, and not thicker than 
Palolo. The imder surface is dirsky green, while the lobate processes of the head are light brown, and the two slender 
cirri of a dull greenish colour, like the appendages of the feet. The tail is terminated by two short processes. The 
specimens appeared to resemble each other closely, and external examination revealed no sexual products. 
2 Proc. Linn. Soc. Land., vol. xvi. p. 39.3, 1882. 
