natural, history

ance of the prostate gland but the rest of the male terminalia apparently normal(including the prostatic duct), disappearance of Some 00[ all of the spermathecaldivertifula, abnormal development of some or all of the spermathecae, disappearance.of some spermathecae (on one side of the body only, or in one or more of the segments).Male gonads and deferents ducts are however still developed even in the completelyathecal and anarsenosomphic individuals.GENUS DICHOGASTER BEDl)ARD 1888Dichogaster sp.Niupani, Lake Te-Nggano, 23. Oct. 1951. - Two specimens (Dan. Exp.).These worms are so macerated that specific identification is inadvisable. They probablyare of D. bolaui (Michaelsen) 1891. Additional specimens (mostly juvenile andaclitellate) from the same and other localities, and also macerated, probably belongeither to the same species or cne of the others of similar size.DISCUSSIONRennell Island earthworms were all referable to two genera. Material belonging toone genus, Dichogaster, was not identified specifically because of maceration butundoubtedly would have been referable to one, or perhaps more of the species thatare found all around the world.The material belonging to the genus Pheretima has been assigned to six species ofwhich three are new. Two of the species, P. esafatae and upoluensis, have been recorded1 from the Caroline, Mari~ma, St. Matthias, Solomon, New Hebrides, Fiji,Samoa, Cook, Society, Paumotu and .Marquesas Islands, all of which presumablywere reached in the same way as Rennell Island. The species are unknown outside ofthe region just indicated. P. montana is known from the Admiralty, New Britain,Caroline, Palao, New Caledonia, Loyalty, New Hebrides, Fiji, Samoa, Society, Paumotuand Marquesas Islands. P. rennel/ana may prOVe to be, like esafatae and upoluensis,a "South Pacific peregrine", but the original SOUrce from which these three closelyrelated forms came cannot yet be identified. P. pickfordi, like P. speiseri which isknown only from the New Hebrides, may have arrived directly or indirectly fromNew Guinea. P. lavangguana presumably came originally from some portion of aregion that includes Borneo and the Celebes at least, as well perhaps as the MalayPeninsula and New Guinea.Several well known peregrine species occasionally have been found in the SouthPacific. P. indica (Horst) 1883, which has been reported from the Fiji Islands, isknown elsewhere from lands to the west of Rennell: Celebes, Moluccas. Philippines,Borneo, Sumatra, Java, the Malay Peninsula, and has been collected on Krakatausince the eruption. P. elongata (E. Perrier) 1872, which must have originated in thesame region as P. lavangguana, has been found in the Caroline and Hawaiian IslandsI. Sometimes as P. taitt'nsis (Grube) 1866 but see GATES, 11)31, p.320 .•21