1899] AMERICAN SPECIES OF PERIPATUS 85 



occurrence of Peripatus in some localities not previously recorded — 

 Mexico, Guadeloupe, and Antigua. He notes that the American forms 

 agree in having lingual teeth formed by a chitinous cone whose in- 

 ternal cavity opens by an apical orifice, in showing a clear dorsal 

 median line usually attenuated to microscopic dimensions, and also a 

 clear (probably sensory) organ on each side of the clear dorsal line in 

 each of the grooves of the body. These organs are absent or atrophied 

 in the African species (except P. tholloni) and in those of Oceania. 

 But of greater interest is the note that the American species form 

 small regional groups, more or less distinct, so that it may almost be 

 predicted that each island of the Antilles has its particular species or 

 variety. 



Wearing of the Green. 



One always welcomes a paper — however short — from Prof. Dr. August 

 Gruber, so well known for his investigations on the Protozoa. One of 

 his latest contributions (Bcr. Naturf. Ges. Freiburg, xi. 1899, pp. 59- 

 61) describes the prosperity of a colony of green amoebae which he 

 observed for about seven years. The colony hailed from a water-basin 

 in the Connecticut valley, and came to Europe in some dried bog-moss 

 in a letter from Prof. Wilder. The green amoebae fed at first on what 

 they could get in the vessel in which the bog-moss was placed ; they 

 devoured rotifers and various forms of rhizopods ; but soon they and 

 green specimens of Paramaecium hursaria were left in possession of the 

 field of pure Freiburg water. No conjugation was observed, and, still 

 more strange, no division, though crops of small forms appeared in 

 continuous succession. The condition of prosperity was obviously to 

 be found in the chlorophyll of the zoochlorellae in the amoebae, and 

 in the sustained illumination. Samples placed in darkness soon came 

 to an end. Thus Dr. Gruber has shown that organisms which are in 

 ordinary circumstances holozoic may by the wearing of the green 

 prosper for many years in a holophytic existence. 



Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. 



Writers of scientific papers, of text-books, and of museum-labels are 

 ever too apt to judge of other people's knowledge by their own. Now 

 one may be no fool and yet be absolutely ignorant of many matters 

 that the specialist has at his fingers' ends. An author therefore 

 should do himself the justice to remember that his papers may possibly 

 be referred to by the general zoologist, or by the " remote, unfriended, 

 solitary " (and shall we add ?) occasionally " slow " student, and he 



