418 SAMUEL H. SCUDDER ON NEW 



is Miinster's GeopJiilus proavus, which is very probably not even a myriapod. The near- 

 est proof of the appearance of the order in paleozoic deposits is in the possible judgment 

 of some that Palaeocampa (which bears somewhat the same relation to Chilopoda that 

 Euphobena does to Diplopoda) should be taken as one of them. No one has made such 

 a claim, and should one do so he would have to recognize in Palaeocampa a highly organ- 

 ized and very aberrant type. But not only do specimens received in recent years from 

 Mr. R. D. Lacoe and Mr. W. F. E. Gurley, but especially from the former, show that 

 Eileticus was nearly allied to the Scolopendridae, and either belonged to the Chilopoda, 

 or was an archaic type to be looked upon as its forerunner; but a single specimen from 

 Mr. Lacoe has also revealed still a second type of chilopodiform character, an ancient 

 type of Scutigeridae. These discoveries carry the chilopodiform line much further back 

 than it was believed it existed, and so for as the record goes renders nugatoi-y much of 

 Dr. Packard's reasoning concerning the greater antiquity of the Diplopoda (Proc. Amer. 

 Phil. Soc. sxi, 206-207), though the occurrence of the diplopodan line in the Scottish 

 devonian should not be overlooked. 



The indications of the presence of heavy armature in some of these chilopodiform car- 

 boniferous myriapods, together with the character of the segments, and the features by 

 which they show kinship to their contemporaries rather than their descendants, lead me 

 to believe that when more is known about them, they may prove to form an archaic type 

 distinguishable as a whole from the later chilopods, as the Archipolypoda from the di- 

 plopods; but the incompleteness of our knowledge of their structure leads me to wait for 

 further light and meanwhile to place them in distinct famiUes separable from their evi- 

 dent successors by trenchant characters. 



Gerascutigeeidae fam. nov. 

 Body relatively short. Head no broader than the body. Dorsal scutes of the same 

 number as the segments and corresponding to them, much broader than long, with no 

 evidence whatever of mediodorsal stomata. Coxae extending beyond the sides of the 

 body, followed by femora of excessive length. 



Latzelia gen. nov. 

 Of the general aspect of Scutigera but differing essentially at every point. The head 

 is vaguely preserved, and none of its appendages can be seen. The body is broadest 

 in the middle, and tapers gradually and about equally in each direction, giving it a rounded 

 fusiform appearance, and the head does not interfere in the least with this outline, so that 

 it is scarcely half as wide as the middle of the body. The segments, to which the dorsal 

 scutes exactly correspond (so different fi-om Scutigera), are subequal in length, and ap- 

 parently nineteen in number, certainly not more than one or two segments away from 

 that; in the middle of the body where widest they are about four times broader than long; 

 both front and hind margins are entire, showing no trace of a recess to favor the jjres- 

 ence of stomata. The legs are nowhere completely preserved, but are apparently unequal 

 in length and slender, as in Scutigera, and at shortest more than half as long as the body, 

 apparently very much as in Scutigera; but their composition is very different; the coxae 



