A Monograph of the Order of Oligochæta

Abstract

IT seems, at first sight, somewhat curious that such common animals as earthworms, occurring as they do all over the globe, should have received so little attention from zoologists until recent years: yet the neglect is not really to be wondered at, for earthworms are very much alike, and are only distinguishable from one another with difficulty even by a zoologist, while to the non-scientific traveller, collector or settler—to whom students of other classes of animals owe so great a debt—earthworms present no attractive character of form, and rarely of colour. Their subterranean habits, too, protect even brilliantly coloured, or specially large, species from the keen eye of the collector. Some of these worms reach a length of four feet, others are less than an inch; whilst most are uninterestingly coloured, there are some bright ones. Megascolex cruleus is a beautiful peacock blue, Microchta rappi is olive green, and pink below.

A Monograph of the Order of Oligochæta.

By F. E. Beddard Pp. 769, 5 plates, and woodcuts. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895.)