188 IDENTITY OF THE AUSTRALIAN PERIPATUS, 



the case in ours. These differences, however, are not more 

 striking than those which may be presented by a nmnber of 

 individual specimens from New South Wales found in the same 

 log. 



Such slight local variations, as well as in the secondary sexual 

 characters of the males, are not uncommon. I have had a good 

 deal of experience now with the Peripatus of New Soutli Wales, 

 but I never yet met with longitudinally striped examples such as 

 Mr. Helms got at Mt. Kosciusco, and Mr. Lea on the northern 

 Tableland. On the other hand, some of my own examples are 

 unlike any I have seen among those collected by others in 

 localities which I have not myself visited. From one district my 

 specimens are characterised by a red tail. Illawarra specimens 

 commonly have a well-marked nodose median dark line, each 

 nodosity standing in a rather triangular patch .of red, but with 

 little or no indication of a lozenge pattern; and in these specimens 

 the median ventral series of white patches (ventral organs) are 

 very inconspicuous indeed. It was such specimens as these that 

 iirst came under my notice; and the relation of their colour- 

 pattern to the diamond pattern of the Victorian Peripatus 

 described by Dr. Dendy failed to suggest itself. I have now 

 examples from other localities in New South Wales which show 

 the chequer pattern as characteristically as Victorian examjDles. 



The males usually have papilhe on all or most of the legs after 

 the first pair, but among specimens from one district I find males 

 with papillae on the legs of the first pair only to predominate, 

 though in two other examples there is also an additional papilla 

 on one leg of the second pair. In the first case crural glands 

 appear to be absent from the legs of the first pair; and 

 of the remainder when papilhie are wanting on some of the 

 legs crural pores may still be recognisable. In the second 

 case crural glands seem to be present only in the legs of 

 the first pair — rarely an additional one in one leg of the 

 second pair. I have seen at least thirty males with papillae 

 on the legs of the first pair only. Two of these Mr. J. P. Hill, 



