132 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 



C. D. Gibbes read a paper describing the geological formation 

 of the oil region in Tulare Valley, west of Tulare Lake, exhibit- 

 ing also specimens of the oils and rocks. 



A paper was submitted, through Dr. Kellogg, by Prof. G. 

 Eisen, entitled, "A preliminary report on the Lithobre of North 

 America." 



Litliobioidae Americae Borealis. 



Preliminary Report on the Lithobii of North America. 



BY ANTON STUXBEKG. 



The oldest account, as far as I know, of the occurrence of Lithobii in North 

 America is dated about fifty years ago, when Thomas Say, in the year 1821. 

 in his "Descriptions of the Myriapoda of the United States," (Journal of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1st series, vol. 2, pp. 102-114) 

 described a species found in the vicinity of Philadelphia, under the name of 

 Lithobius spinipes. 



Next to Say comes George Newport, who (1845) in his classical work 

 "Monograph of the class Myriapoda, order chilopoda," (Transactions of the 

 Linnean Society, vol. XIX, pp. 265—302, 349—439,) described as being found 

 in the United States, three species: Lithobius multidentatus, L. Americanus and 

 L. planus; of these Newport considers, however, not without some doubt, L. 

 Americanus to be identical with L. spinipes— Say ; and according to my opinion 

 this same L. Americanus is no other species than the one in Europe so exceed- 

 ingly common, and well known since the time of Linneus, as L. forficatus 

 (Linneus), not to mention a very short communication by Perbosc in Revue 

 Zoologique, 1839, page 261, where a supposed new species L. Mexicanus is 

 very unsatisfactorily described. 



When Ludwig Koch, in the year 1862, published his monographic treatise 

 on the genus Lithobius (Die Myriapodengattung Lithobius, Niimberg, 1862,) 

 he also described as new two North American species: L. transmarinus and 

 L. mordax. 



Shortly afterwards, 1863, we find by Horatio C. Wood, Jr., under the title: 

 "On the chilopoda of North America, with a catalogue of all the specimens 

 in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution," (Journal of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, new series, vol. V, pp. 5-52,) the begin- 

 ning of a monograph of the myriopods of North America. Of Lithobii he 

 enumerates not less than seven species: L. mullidentntus, L. Americanus, L. 

 paucidens, L. planus, L. nobilis, L. Xanti, and L. bipunctatus, of which the 

 three last mentioned are arranged under a separate Genus Bothropolys, dis- 

 tinguished from the old genus Lithobius Leach, by the arrangement of pori 

 coxales in several more or less irregular rows. 



In his principal work of somewhat later date, (1865), "The Myriapoda of 

 N. America," (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, new 



