BY J. J. FLETCHER. 187 



And therefore viewing the matter in a serious light, and 

 leaving misleading analogies and groundless expectations out of 

 sight, and having regard only to the simple truth, what can be 

 said of the latter clause at least of the above-quoted passage 

 than that it is simply an exploded fable, a delusion and a snare? 

 For, taking the passage as a whole, and as it stands, to what 

 known Australian species of Peripatus is Dr. Dendy prepared to 

 maintain that it can be truthfully applied? In other words, is it 

 intended to be sober truth embodying the latest contribution to a 

 knowledge of the life-history of the viviparous N.S.W. Peripatus, 

 which Dr. Dendy says is oviparous, which has never been known 

 to lay eggs in July, or to that of the Victorian Peripatus, whose 

 young have never been known to hatch at the end of October or 

 thereabouts 1 For one of the most important results arrived at by 

 Dr. Dendy, so far, and at a date subsequent to that on which each 

 of his four papers was written, is that the eggs found by him on 

 July 31st — the only known Australian Peripatus eggs so far 

 known — the possession of which on that date enabled him to 

 prove so much, among other things, that P. leiickartii as it occurs 

 in N.S.W. was certainly oviparous, utterly failed to come up to 

 expectations, and that the young did not hatch therefrom '• at the 

 end of October" ; for it appears from the Presidential Address of 

 Professor Baldwin Spencer delivered in Section D at the Tasmanian 

 Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, on January 9th, 1892, in which the Peripatus eggs in 

 question are referred to, that at that time [or to allow for a small 

 margin let us say up to December 31st] they were still only in 

 course of development, and he adds " that the embryos will 

 apparently soon be hatched out." Hence "at the end of October" 

 is clearly an impostor, and may as well be thrown overboard once 

 and for all. 



Hutton and Sedgwick met with New Zealand Peripatus eggs, 

 and they found that young did not hatch therefrom. Dr. Dendy 

 on July 31st found Australian Peripatus eggs, and though on that 

 date he knew exactly what would happen on or about October 31st, 

 still up to December 31st he seems to have found himself pretty 

 much in the same position, or at least in a position of extraor- 



