268 Mr. Newport on the Class Myriapoda, Order Chilopoda, 



regarded the Myriapoda as closely connected with the Thysanoura*, to which 

 he joined them by means of the genus Forbic'ma, Geoff. ; while Strauss agrees 

 with De Blainville in opinion respecting the affinity which exists between the 

 Myriapoda and Annelida^, but conceives the transition to be found in Pol- 

 lyxenus on the one hand, and Eunice and its affinities on the other ; and he 

 has also remarked, with Latreille and Dug^s, that the Myriapoda have some 

 close relations with the Thysanoura. A more recent authority, M. Brandt;}:, 

 who has paid very close attention to these animals, regards them as connected 

 directly with true insects ; and in this opinion he is supported, as he remarks, by 

 the Committee appointed to examine a work recently presented by M. Gervais 

 to the Institute of France. 



After an attentive examination of the Myriapoda, as compared with other 

 Articulata, I have been unable entirely to adopt the views of any one of the 

 distinguished naturalists above noticed, either in regard to the situation 

 which they ought to occupy in the arrangement of the Invertehrata, or to 

 the affinities by which they are connected with the other classes. They cer- 

 tainly have many close relations to the larva state of true insects in the 

 elongated form of the body, in their mode of respiration, in the structure of 

 the organs of circulation and nutrition, and also in the arrangement of their 

 nervous system ; but they differ from them entirely in their mode of growth 

 and development. 



The Myriapoda, as just stated, acquire a periodical addition of segments 

 and legs, with their separate ganglia, nerves and other structures. This 

 addition of new parts, at each change of tegument, takes place in all the 

 Myriapoda up to a certain period of their growth, which period varies in 

 different genera. But this addition of parts never occurs in Insects, even in 

 the lowest forms of the class, or even in their earliest stages, after leaving the 

 ovum. Every entomologist is aware that when an insect bursts from the egg it 

 is furnished with the whole number of segments and legs it is ever to possess ; 

 and in no instance does the number of segments exceed fifteen. The usual num- 

 ber, thirteen, as naturalists are well aware, is very rarely exceeded ; although 



* Nouvelles Annales du Museum, i. p. 175. 



t Considdrations G6n6rales sur 1' Anatomic des Animaux articulds, 4to, 1828, p. 16. 



X Recueil de M^moires relatifs h. I'ordre des Insectes Myriapodes, 1841. 



