82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1881. 



thrond nia}^ bo drawn out. It is believed that this spinning appa- 

 ratus is used in fixing or attaching the eggs of the animal. 



" The pairs of legs and the number of joints in the antenute are 

 variable. I found but eleven pairs of legs and seventeen joints 

 in a young animal. Tlie first pair of legs was wanting. In other 

 specimens with twelve pairs of feet I found twenty-five, in others 

 tliirt3'-two, and in others still, forty-two joints in the antennae, 

 the last seems to be the number in full-grown specimens." . . . 



In conclusion our author observes that, " It Avill have been con- 

 cluded from what has been said, that Scolopendrella is distin- 

 guished from Lithobius as well as from Geophilus b}' the very 

 different manducatory apparatus, the double tarsal claws, the 

 ventral and the caudal appendages with the spinning apparatus, 

 and that it does not naturally fall into the same family with either 

 of those genera. On the contrary the animal agrees in its princi- 

 pal characters (excepting the spinning organs) and especially in 

 its habits with Gampodea ; is distinguished from it, however, by 

 the greater niimber of pairs of legs and the dorsal scutes. I 

 believe, accordingly, that Scolopendrella may be regarded as the 

 type of a genus or family intermediate between the six-footed 

 Lepmnidse and the Scolopendriddey 



The foregoing paragraph shows how very nearly Menge had 

 concluded thirty years ago that these singular animals should be 

 separated from the Myriapods proper. The parallel between his 

 conclusions and my own are very striking, as will be seen from 

 the following w^ords from my notice already alluded to. " This 

 form, as interpreted above, becomes of the highest interest to the 

 zoologist, and if the writer is not mistaken, the biunguiculate legs 

 and their nearly complete correspondence in number with rudi- 

 mentary abdominal and functional thoracic limbs of the Thysa- 

 nura, especially 3Iachilis and Lepisma, which also have basal 

 appendages to the legs, indicate as much affinity with insects as 

 with myriapods, and may indeed be looked upon, perhaps, as 

 representing the last survival of the form from which insects may 

 be supposed to have descended. I name the new group Symphyla, 

 in reference to the singular combination of myriapodous, insectean 

 and thj'sanurous characters wliicli it presents." 



Our conclusions as to its zoological position being nearly the 

 same, upon the details of the anatomy w^e disagree. I stated in 

 my note my interpretation of the ventral openings on the third or 



