306 SUMMAEY OF CURRENT RESEAECHES RELATING TO 



three or four hours. The author advances a number of facts suggesting 

 that there is active cutaneous respiration in Millipedes, but none in 

 Centipedes. He also directed attention to the accumulation of gas 

 [C0 2 ?] beneath the cuticle of submerged millipedes. Furthermore he 

 maintains that the respiratory process in Diplopoda is very slow when 

 compared with that in Chilopoda. This is borne out by experiments 

 showing how successfully lulus resists immersion in inert and even 

 deleterious gases, which are rapidly fatal to Chilopoda. 



Notes Oil Myriopods.* — Dr. F. Silvestri criticises the identifications 

 in a recent memoir by Prof. G. Rossi, and various statements as to the 

 development and the hypodermis of lulus. Nor does he agree with what 

 Rossi says as to the possibility of submerged Diplopoda absorbing air 

 through the cuticular pores. In the second part of his paper, Silvestri 

 gives a short account of the integumentary skeleton of Glomeridesmus, 

 and of the repugnatory and sericiparous glands. He has also notes on 

 the dorsal glands of Glomeris. 



y. Prototracheata. 



Oviparous Species of Onychophora.f — Prof. A. Dendy gives the 

 following summary of the principal conclusions arrived at in his 

 memoir. 



The genus Ooperipatus includes a number of oviparous Onychophora 

 characteristic of Eastern Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand ; dis- 

 tinguished by laying large, heavily yolked eggs with a thick sculptured 

 chorion, and by the presence in the female of a conspicuous muscular 

 ovipositor. The egg at the time of laying contains no recognisably 

 developed embryo, and development takes place afterwards with extreme 

 slowness. The oviparous habit is very ancient, dating back at least to 

 the Cretaceous epoch, as indicated by the geographical distribution of 

 the species. The conclusions of Sedgwick and Sclater as to the loss 

 of yolk in the eggs of certain viviparous species are thereby supported. 



Three species are at present known, 0. oviparm, 0. viridimaculatus, 

 and 0. insignis. In the last the eggs have not yet been observed, but 

 the females have the conspicuous ovipositor. The genus is very closely 

 related to Pocock's Peripatoides, and may be regarded as representing 

 an ancestral form from which the viviparous Australasian species are 

 descended. 



Except as regards the egg-laying habit and structures associated 

 therewith, the geuus Ooperipatus is, according to the views of Bouvier, 

 very far from primitive in its characters, the number of walking legs 

 being reduced to fifteen or fourteen, the spinous pads being only three 

 m number, and the transverse ridges of the integument being interrupted 

 in the mid-dorsal line by a narrow unpigmented groove. 



There is no sufficient reason for supposing that Ooperipatus insignis 

 Dendy is identical with Peripatus leuclcartii Sanger, which last name 

 must be retained for the common viviparous form of New South Wales. 



Papillae of Onychophora.:}:— E. L. Bouvier finds in a study of the 

 pedal papillae some useful hints as to the phylogeny of the Peripatidae. 



* Eev. Patol. Veg., x. (1902) pp. 179-84. 



t Quart. Journ. Micr. Soi., xlv. (1902) pp. 365-415 (4 pis.). 



; Coniptes Kendus, exxxiv. (1902) pp. 55-8. 



