THE MUSEUM. 
5 
frequently in the leaf sheaths of rushes. I have also found the species in ponds and 
rivulets of other parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and near New r port, Rhode 
Island. In one instance, among- several hundred specimens, collected in a ditch 
below Philadelphia, ranging from three to five lines in length, I observed a single 
individual twice the size of the others. When placed in weak alcohol it protruded 
the proboscis, which assumed a regular bell shape. 
A Planaria, perhaps not uncommon in some localities of our country, though I 
have rarely met with it, is the Phagocata gracilis , which is not only one of the most 
remarkable of the family, but one of the most singular animals I have had the oppor¬ 
tunity of observing. So far as my information goes I believe, with the present 
exception, there is no known individual or simple animal which has more than one 
throat or passage of communication with the stomach. My attention was first called 
to the singular creature by the late Prof S. S. Haldeman, while I was a guest in his 
hospitable home at Chickis, on the Susquehanna river, in 1847. He had previously 
described it, in 1840, with the name of Planaria gracilis. In front of the house is a 
beautiful spring of water, which has its source in the neighboring cliff of Potsdam 
sandstone, and runs in a clear stream over a sandy bottom into the Susquehanna. 
Creeping on the bottom of the spring, crossing and recrossing in restless activity, 
and sometimes ascending at the sides and floating bottom upward, like fresh-water 
snails, all day long, were numerous specimens of the Planaria. In shape, size and 
color it so nearly resembles Planaria macnlala that I have suspected 
it may be another stage of the same. The head, however, is less 
diamond shaped and with more obtuse front and lateral angles. 
The coloring is more uniformly brownish black. The eyes are like 
those of P. maculata y and the stomach is alike in its dendritic 
arrangement. As represented in the accompanying figure, magni¬ 
fied, the animal has numerous probosces. These have the same 
form as that of the other species, but range in number from three to 
a couple of dozen, apparently according to age and size of the 
animal. One is attached to the commencement of the anterior 
branch of the stomach, as usual in other Planarias, while the others 
are attached along the anterior half of the inner side of the postero¬ 
lateral branches of the stomach. Observed in the oral cavity, 
within the animal, subjected to slight compression under the micro¬ 
scope, the probosces are seen to be closely crowded, and as they 
move they mutually displace one another. In the act of feeding the 
animal contracts and all the probosces protrude from the expanded 
mouth and wriggle in all directions. Each and all together swallow 
ood, which is probably mingled decomposing animal and vegetal 
matter. In experiment the creature was observed to feed with avidity on portions of 
a crushed earth worm. The numerous probosces in their position and movements 
reminded me of the young of Clepsine, attached to the parent and moving about in 
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