BY J. J. FLETCHER. 179 



what less unsatisfactory than New Holland. I should take it to 

 mean that the type specimen was found within the limits of New 

 South Wales, somewhere between Sj^dney and Cassilis — at which 

 place Mr. Olliff obtained the otherwise first recorded specimen 

 from this colony — or thereabouts, but not much further to the 

 west or north-west of the latter. It is hardly probable that over 

 thirty j^ears ago Peripatus was found in the then newly separated 

 colony of Queensland at any spot in a direction N.W. from 

 Sydney, say to the north of Bourke. Not only would such a 

 locality then have been ver}^ much less easy of access to a 

 zoological collector than it is now; but it would, I should think, 

 be one with a climate altogether too dry for Peripatus. This 

 being so, it is a curious fact — not however without a parallel, — 

 that so long ago somebody should have casualty found somewhere 

 in this colony a single specimen of Peripatus with 14 pairs of 

 walking legs, but that similar specimens, whether from New South 

 Wales or Queensland, notwithstanding much collecting, should 

 still be desiderata. Sedgwick has probably had to do with more 

 individual specimens of Peripatus than all other naturalists 

 put together ; and yet among the specimens — " more than a 

 thousand from the Cape Peninsula" — which came under his 

 notice, F. brevw, de Blainv., was conspicuously absent, and in the 

 flesh was unknown to him at the time the Monograph was written. 

 In the Macleay Museum is a specimen of a Peripatus with 15 

 pairs of walking legs, labelled Tasmania, to which Mr. Masters 

 directed my attention in 1890 (P.L.S. N.S.W., 2nd Ser., Vol. v., 

 p. 469). At that time Mr. Masters considered that it had been 

 at least ten years in the collection, and he still thinks that the 

 correctness of the reputed locality is not open to question. The 

 label is in his own writing, but he is unable to recall the exact 

 circumstances under which the specimen came to hand. Recentlv 

 Prof. Baldwin Spencer was successful in finding Peripatus in 

 Tasmania, but some fifteen specimens ol)tained had 14 pairs of 

 claw-bearing legs apiece. 



(2) It was not Prof. Leuckart's intention to furnish a technical 

 description of his specimen. On the other hand Sanger's descrijD- 

 tion was about as full as it could be expected to be under the 



