BY J. J. FLETCHER. 183 



eastern form is to be regarded as a species distinct from what we 

 must now consider to be P. huckarti, Sang., then the western form 

 also, as it seems to me, ought to be so regarded. I would prefer 

 to consider the latter an intermediate form, as at present Austra- 

 lia would, I think, be over-supplied with- as many as four species. 

 Seeing that many more specimens have had their legs counted, 

 than have had the jaw blades examined, and that in two examples 

 from New South Wales, in one or both outer blades there is more 

 than one accessory tooth, — in one case three on the jaw blade 

 of one side; in another the accessory tooth, longer and blunter 

 than usual, is followed b}^ several serrations; in both examples 

 the peculiarities are reproduced in the reserve teeth — it seems 

 probable that unlooked for variation, may be found. Further, 

 Dr. Dendy has recently recognised as a var. of P. noiice-zealandiw 

 a New Zealand Peripatus with 16 pairs of walking legs"^; so that 

 the idea that in this species the number of feet is " fixed," must 

 noAv be given up. Therefore the most satisfactory arrangement, 

 in ni}^ opinion, w^ould be to consider all the known Australian 

 specimens of Peripatus as referable to one comprehensive species 

 with four varieties as follows : — 



Peripatus leuckarti, Sang. 



With 14 or with 15 pairs of claw-bearing ambulatory legs. 

 Outer jaw-blades without or with an accessory tooth, occasionally 

 more, at the base of the main tooth. Males smaller than the 

 females; with a pair of (accessory gland) pores close together, 

 situated between the genital papilla and the anus; with a white 

 or sometimes bluish tubercle — on which opens the crural gland— 

 on each leg of the first pair only, or of the last pair only, or of all 

 or only some of the pairs with the exception of the first, or of the 

 first five. 



Colour varying from dark blue or almost so, so dark sometimes 

 as to appear blackish, with a still darker median dorsal line in 

 the centre of which lies a fine unpigmented groove; to alternate 



* Ann. Mag. N. H. (6) Vol. xiv., Dee. 189i, p. 401. 



