BY J. J. FLETCHER. 185 



the mode of reproduction of the supposed oviparous P. leuckartii 

 still apply to it without modification ; that the statement or 

 implication that P. leuckartii is oviparous cannot be allovi'ed to 

 pass muster until it is shown either that the New South Wales 

 Peripatus is not viviparous, or that it cannot correctly be referred 

 to that species ; and that the wide difference in the mode of 

 development of P. leuckartii as compared with all other known 

 species is not proved, since the N.S.W. Peripatus is viviparous, 

 and in the case of the Victorian Peripatus, if the wide difference 

 consists in this that "the young are hatched at the end of 

 October," that wide difference has now vanished, while if it lie 

 that eggs were once deposited, then on the same grounds Dr. 

 Dendy should have stated that the New Zealand Peripatus was 

 sometimes oviparous. Hence, under any circumstances whatever, 

 explanations and restatements are necessary. 



And as Dr. Dendy does not now for the first time hear that 

 P. leuckartii as it occurs in New South Wales, is indisputably 

 viviparous, and does not in its mode of reproduction differ widely 

 from all other known species, and that there has never been any 

 reason to suppose otherwise, it would have been just as well if an 

 early opportunity of making the necessary modifications and of 

 setting matters straight, had been found, because already his 

 unmodified statements are finding their way into the records of 

 zoological literature, and confusion and misapprehension must 

 necessarily result. For example in Part i. of the Journal of the 

 Royal Microscopical Society for 1892, recently to hand, there is (p. 

 37) an abstract of one of Dr. Dendy's papers, and it there occurs this 

 wondrous statement, a perfectly legitimate deduction by a recorder 

 whose bona fides is not to be questioned : " The eggs [of P. 

 leuckartii?^ appear to be laid in or about July, and the young are 

 hatched at the end of October." As a joke, or even as a fairy 

 tale, this is, of course, perfectly admirable, becavise — and we may 

 here leave the viviparous N.S.W. Peripatus entirely out of con- 

 sideration for a moment — there must be a considerable number of 

 individual specimens of Peripatus within the territory of Victoria, 

 where, we are told, Peripatus is not an uncommon constituent of 

 that section of the invertebrate fauna which lives out of sight 



