BY J. J. FLETCHER. 189 



And if it be asked why the month of October should have been 

 imported into the matter at all, any one of Dr. Dendy's four 

 papers will supply an answer. This is one of them : " It thus 

 appears that P. leuckartii lays eggs in July or thereabouts ; and 

 it appears also, from Mr. Fletcher's observations, with which it 

 will be seen that my own fit in very well so far, that the young 

 are hatched at the end of October" (Proc. R.S. Vict. iv. (n.s.) p. 

 33). This, it is hardly necessary to state, is entirely Dr. Dendy's 

 own version of the matter, and in flat contradiction to my expe- 

 rience and statements ; and I wholly repudiate any connection 

 with it. I never irrationally supposed that the young specimens 

 met with by me in October, 1888, were hatched from eggs laid by 

 an oviparous animal some months before, I do not believe so now, 

 and I have never made any statements which could possibly lead, 

 or rather mislead. Dr. Dendy or any one else to suppose so. 

 Quite the contrary ; what I said was that of two females once in my 

 possession, one on dissection proved to be pregnant — a perfectly 

 correct use of the term sanctioiaed by so good an authority as 

 Moseley — and that the other died shortly after giving birth to 

 four young ones, which I exhibited at a meeting of this Society 

 in October, 1888. My statements I can fully and convincingly 

 justify ; but Dr. Dendy has just as fully and convincingly shown 

 the absurdity of his own conclusions respecting them liy himself 

 proving, firstly, that my observations when they are not misre- 

 presented so far from fitting in very well with his own are 

 diametrically opposed to them ; and secondly, that when the 

 Victorian Peripatus does lay eggs in July, young are not hatched 

 therefrom " at the end of October " or anywhere near that date. 



Moseley was the first to announce that Peripatus was vivipa- 

 rous ; and as he unhesitatingly stated this to be the case, it is 

 important to consider for a moment the evidence on which he 

 relied, because at the time his classical paper was written he 

 clearly did not know the month in Avhich the young were born, 

 he had not witnessed the birth of the young, and he had never 

 even seen the newly born young ; and it is equally clear that it 

 was not possible for him to have known the one or seen the others. 

 What he says on these points is : " The breeding-period of 



