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XI.—Anatomical Description of Two New Genera of Aquatic Oligochœta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

Frank E. Beddard
Frank E. Beddard
Affiliation:
Prosector of the Zoological Society of London, and Lecturer onBiology at Guy's Hospital.
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Extract

At present our knowledge of the exotic genera of the aquatic Oligochæta is not very far advanced. During the last twenty years there has been a considerable accumulation of descriptions of exotic Earthworms, but the lower Oligochæta have been much less studied. The principal investigations into this group have been carried on by Eisen, who has made us acquainted with a number of interesting forms, belonging to the families Tubificidæ and Lumbriculidæ, from North America. Other naturalists, such as Leidy, have also dealt with the Oligochætous fauna of that country; but their papers have chiefly had for their object the discrimination of genera and species, and are not so much concerned with the description and delineation of anatomical structure. Beyond the series of papers published by the above-mentioned authors, we have only a few scattered memoirs by other writers upon exotic species of “Limicolous” Oligochæta.

Having recently been awarded, by the Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society, a sum of money to assist me in the investigation of the Oligochæta, I have been anxious not to limit myself to Earthworms, but to obtain as many specimens of the aquatic forms as possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , 1892 , pp. 273 - 305
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1892

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References

page 275 note * The so-called gizzard of the Naidomorpha seems to be hardly comparable to the gizzard of Earthworms.

page 276 note * I state the facts with due reservation. It seems to me far from improbable that the “intestinal heart” may ultimately prove to be connected, as they are in Eudrilidæ, for example, with both dorsal and supra-intestinal trunk in all worms which possess the latter.

page 282 note * See, however, p. 290, footnote.

page 290 note * Since the above was written, I have received a more fully adult specimen, in which one of the segments in the neighbourhood of the XIIIth was furnished with a pair of tubular processes. An unfortunate accident in the preparation of this specimen for section cutting prevented me from ascertaining whether these are merely the everted atria, as I believe, or are penes. The clitellum in this specimen apparently occupied about four segments, commencing at the XIIth or XIIIth.

page 297 note * I notice that Rosa, in a recent paper, still speaks of the small second appendage of the spermatheca in Perichæta Houlleti (and P. campanulata) as a diverticulum of the spermatheca. If the structure of the body in question is the same in Perichæta campanulata as in the species which I investigated, and believed to be identical with Perrier's P. Houlleti, the term is hardly applicable.