I had hoped to obtain some evidence as to the time of the appearance of the extra legs from the examination of embryos, but, although both the specimens which I dissected were females, I could find no embryos in a sufficiently advanced state of development to afford the required information. Had it not been for the well-known variability òf certain neotropical species in the number of their legs I should have been inclined to regard the three specimens from Stratford as specifically distinct. Under the circumstances, however, it seems best to regard them as belonging to a local variety, and I propose for this variety the name Peripatus novæ-zealandiæ, var. suteri.

Art. XIX.—Notes on a New Zealand Land Nemertine. By Arthur Dendy, D. Sc., Professor of Biology in the Canterbury College, University of New Zealand. [Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 5th September, 1894.] The nemertines form, as is well known, a typically marine group of animals, being abundant and widely distributed in shallow seas. Very few species seem to have deserted their marine habitat in favour of a terrestrial one, so that land nemertines are exceedingly rare. Up to the present time, indeed, only five species have been described—viz., Tetrastemma agricola, discovered on the “Challenger” Expedition, and described by Dr. Von Willemoes-Suhm; Tetrastemma rodericanum, discovered at the Island of Rodriguez by the Transit of Venus Expedition, and described by Mr. Gulliver; Geonemertes palaensis, found by Professor Semper in the Pelew Islands; Geonemertes chalicophora, found by Professor Von Graff in gardens in Germany, and probably introduced there by human agency; and lastly, Geonemertes australiensis, discovered by myself in Victoria, and described with anatomical details and illustrations in the “Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria” for 1891. Like the land planarians, to which they are in some measure related, the land nemertines belong to the cryptozoic fauna, being found under fallen timber, stones, &c., and probably only venturing from their hiding-places at night or in very wet weather in search of prey. They are small, slimy worms, closely resembling land planarians at first sight, but readily distinguished by the sudden emission of a long, white proboscis from the anterior extremity when the animal is irritated.