270 ON THE OVIPARITY OF THE LARGER VICTORIAN PERIPATUS, 



Fletcher and Professor Haswell, but I would ask Mr. Fletcher 

 to remember that when I wrote the only published observations 

 as to the mode of reproduction of the New South Wales species 

 were (a) the finding of the young in company with the mother, 

 though there was nothing, so far as the published account goes, 

 to show that they had not been hatched from eggs laid for some 

 time, and (b) a footnote* to one of Mr. Fletcher's observations, 

 stating that a female had been dissected and found to be pregnant; 

 the term pregnant is not defined, and might, in my opinion, be 

 correctly applied to a female containing large but undeveloped 

 eggs in the uterus ; nothing is said by Mr. Fletcher about the 

 embryos. 



Mr. Fletcher may personally have had abundant evidence that 

 the New South Wales Peripatus was viviparous, but that evidence 

 was not published, and not known to me when I waote, and 

 therefore I consider that I was quite justified in stating that the 

 mode of reproduction of /■*. leuckartii was unknown, and in placing 

 my own interpretation upon the only recorded facts as to the 

 life-history of the New South Wales form. Naturally, I inter- 

 preted them in the light of my own observations on the Victorian 

 species. That interpretation I now fully admit to be incorrect, 

 and I congratulate myself that if my observations have had no 

 other good result they have at least elicited some definite infor- 

 mation as to the mode of reproduction of the New South Wales 

 Peripatus. 



(4) Mr. Fletcher seems to be very greatly troubled because 

 my statements are already " finding their way into the records 

 of zoological literature, and confusion and misajiprehension may 

 result therefrom." There is not the slightest need for confusion 

 now that we have at length a definite statement as to the repro- 

 duction of the N.S.W. species. It must be perfectly obvious to 

 every reader that my own observations were based entirely on 

 Victorian specimens, as stated distinctly in the paper, and that 

 my suggestion as to the New South Wales form was a perfectly 



* P.L.S.N.S.W. Vol. iii. p. 892. 



