304 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



together with her legs and keeping them away from the soil. After some 

 period the eggs are hatched and the young ones emerge quite soft and 

 white, about 1 cm. long. The mother nurses also the young ones in the 

 same manner for some time. When they are big enough they have to look 

 out for themselves. 1 have observed the young ones in July in the persis- 

 tent leaf-sheath of a Palm. 



As to the other order of Myriopoda, viz., the Ckilot/natka or Millipedes, a 

 little more seems to be known with regard to the breeding habits, though 

 even here some writers have been generalizing too much. Sedgwick v. g. 

 says that "the eggs are laid shortly after copulation, in masses in damp 

 earth, under stones, etc. Sometimes a kind of nest is made, and in some spe- 

 cies the mother keeps watch over the eggs." Hayek makes the same state- 

 ment. Sinclair who succeeded in bringing some specimens of Polydesmun 

 alive from Madeira to England, and in getting them to breed, observes that 

 '•their way of laying eggs and making a nest resembles that of Julus, which 

 is known to lay 60 to 100 eggs at a time in a small nest in the ground. I 

 have been able to observe a species of Polf/des)nus in Bombay, in the month 

 <tf October. When removing a i^lant with the soil from a flower pot I 

 noticed on one of the pieces of a broken flower pot (which the malis use to 

 put inside in the bottom) a dome-like structure made of earth and about 

 1 cm. in diameter. On opening it I found a young Poli/defonus curled up in 

 the cavity of the dome. It was about 1 cm. long, quite soft and completely 

 white. On examining the other broken pieces of the flower pot I found 

 .") or 6 more of those domes, each one containing one young Polydesmus. 

 From this it is evident thai at least one Indian species of Polydesmus does 

 not lay its eggs in masses, but singly, enclosing each in a mud dome. 

 What the young Millipedes are feeding on during the first time of their de- 

 velopment I cannot say. But it seems that the young larva eats its own 

 moult, as, in some cases, I have seen only half a moult left in the cavity. 

 Of course this self-devouring process cannot increase the size of the larva, 

 and I wish to add that I have not seen them actually eating the moult. 



C. McCANN. 

 St. Xavier's College BiOLoaiCAL Laboratory, 

 Bombay, April 1918. 



No. XXVIII.— note ON A NEW UNDESCRIBED SPECIES OF 

 CYNODON BY K. RANGACHARI AND C. TADULINGAM. 



{With a Plate). 



Specimens of this grass collected in the Godavari District were left 

 unidentified for want of sufticient material. We obtained last year sufficient 

 material by growing plants from a specimen collected on the Nilgiris near 

 Kallar. This is named Cynodon intermedius, as it resembles in certain 

 respects Cynodon dactylon on the one hand and Cynodon harhen on the 

 other. 



Cynodon intermedius, sp. no v. 



This grass is a widely creeping perennial. 



The stems are slender, glabrous, creeping superficially and rooting at the 

 nodes, but never rhizomiferous, leafy with slender erect or goniculately 

 ascending flowering branches, and varying in length from 12 to 18 inches ; 

 nodes are slightly swollen, glabrous, green or purplish. 



The leaf-sheath is smooth, glabrous, slightly compressed, sparsely bearded 

 at the mouth, shorter than the internode, except the one enclosing the 

 peduncle which is usually long ; the ligule is a shortly ciliated rim. 



