I04 JUNGLE ISLAND 



they looked much the same, but on the inside of 

 their bodies they tried new ways of breathing air 

 and pumping blood. They were no longer real 

 worms, but neither had they changed enough to 

 be called insects. They were Peripatus. In rocks 

 that geologists think were laid down about eight 

 hundred million years ago we find today the print 

 of Peripatus bodies very much like those that live 

 on Barro Colorado Island now. 



In those ancient days, when all the earth was 

 warmer and moister, Peripatus could probably be 

 found over a great deal of- the world. Now the 

 family lives only in the belt around the middle 

 of the earth, in South and Central America, the 

 West Indies, Africa, the Malay Peninsula, the 

 East Indies, and Australia. 



On Barro Colorado, Peripatus is hard to find 

 in the dry season. Whenever I had the time to 

 spare I dug for the animals in likely places, but I 

 never brought any up to the light. I was for- 

 tunate enough to see one that had been found by 

 a man digging out termite burrows. 



This Peripatus had a wormlike body, about an 

 inch and a half long, with rows of fat legs ranged 

 in pairs along its sides, like the legs of an ordinary 

 caterpillar. Its light-brown velvety skin had a 

 darker stripe down the back. The eyes on the 

 sides of its head were small and bright. Above 

 its eyes it carried a pair of antennae, or feelers, 

 nearly as long as the Peripatus itself, and these 



