BY J. J. FLETCHER. 173 



kann den bis jetzt bekannten Arten dieses Geschlechts gieichfalls 

 eine neue Form aus Australien mit 16 Beinpaaren hinzufiigen).* 



It is to be noted that in mentioning the Cape species as " mit 

 17 Paar Beinen,"t Leuckart was simply quoting Frauenfekl, who 

 had seen the animal alive, had witnessed the copious discharge of 

 tenacious slime, " aus dem abgestutzten Ende der beiden kurzen 

 unten den Stirnfiihlern liegenden Mundfiihlern," and who, there- 

 fore, excluded the oral papillae — as Moseley afterwards called them 

 — when counting the legs. But in regard to the Australian 

 Peripatus, it seems evident that Prof. Leuckart intentionally 

 included the oral papillae among the 16 pairs, but without indi- 

 cating the fact. For, some years later in noticing Button's paper 

 he remarks of P. novce-zealandice that like P. leuckarti, Sang., it 

 possesses "15 Beinpaare." Now Hutton had expressly said 

 " fifteen pairs of ambulatory legs, and a pair of oral papillae." 

 Allowing for this, however, there would still seem to have been 

 some misapprehension on Prof. Leuckart 's part as to the exact 

 number of claw-bearing legs possessed by his specimen — as the 

 sequel will show. 



Subsequently Prof. Leuckart entrusted his specimen of the 

 Australian Peripatus to H. Sanger, who embodied a description 

 of it in a paper dealing in some detail with the anatomy of P. 

 capensiii, contributed to the " Moskauer Naturforscherversamm- 

 lung " in 1869. Unfortunately Sanger chose the Russian language 

 as his medium of publication, and in consequence his paper for 

 some twenty-five years has been practically buried. Indeed 

 but for two brief references to it l^y Prof. Leuckart in the Archiv 

 f. Naturgeschi elite, its existence even, as well as its contents, 

 might very well have remained unknown to this day. The bulky 



*Ai-chiv f. Naturgescb. Jahrg. xxvii., 1862, ii Bd., p. 235. 

 tFrauenfeld's specimens were afterwards dealt with by Grube, who 

 described them as P. capeiiftis (" Reise der Novara"). He says there were 

 three specimens, two with 17 pairs of claw-bearing legs, the third with IS 

 pairs. He did not attach specific importance to the difference in the num- 

 ber of legs, whence the " pedes uncinigeri utrinque 17 vel 18 verrucosi " of 

 his description. 



