BY J. J. FLETCHER. 177 



compariso]i; or was it that the authors mentioned thought that in 

 each case the number of claw-bearing legs was the same; or that 

 they knew that the numbers were not identical but regarded the 

 difference as not of specific importance 1 Moseley's remark penned 

 in 1879, "In the Australian and New Zealand species the number 

 (jf feet seems fixed " — would, under the circumstances mentioned, 

 seem without force if the last condition held. 



On the re-discovery of the Australian Peripatus, first in 

 Queensland (in 1886)- not improbably first in Tasmania, though 

 no record of it was made at the time — then in Victoria (in 1888), 

 and in the same year in New South AVales, and all the specimens 

 met w^ith for several years were found to have 15 pairs of walking 

 legs, it was imagined that these were correctly identified as P. 

 leuckarti in supposed agreement with the " funfzehn Paar Fuss- 

 stumel " of Leuckart's abstract of Sanger's paper. In 1890 Dr. 

 Dendy met with a Victorian Peripatus, with 14 pairs of walking 

 legs, and without an accessory tooth at the base of the fang of 

 the outer jaw Ijlades; and this he quite justifiably considered to 

 be sufficienth' distinct to be regarded as a second Australian 

 species, which he accordingly described as I\ insigrds. In 189:^ 

 Prof. Spencer obtained similar examples in Tasmania. 



We may now turn to 



^'"Sanger's original Diagnosis of Peripatus Leuckartii.^'' 



" Found in New Holland, north-west from Sydney. Fifteen 

 pairs of legs, one pair without claws, fourteen with. This 

 character also found in P. brevis, described by Blanehard. 21 mm. 

 long. Sexual opening between the last pair of appendages, herein 

 flitfering from P. Edivardsii and P. capeiisis. Colour very nearly 

 black dorsally, greyish ventrally. Papilhe distributed dorsally 

 and ventrally : those on the ventral surface, however, are longer 

 and stand outwards laterally. Between each pair of appendages is a 

 light oval spot without papillae; this spot corresponds with the 

 dark pits in P. capensis, under which occur the glands already 

 described. The papilla?, as in F. caj^ensis, are either small and 

 black or large and red, but there are more black than red. Along 

 M 



