INTRODUCTION 7 



Superorder Proterandria 

 Order Proterospennophora 



Suborder Polydesmoidea 

 Order Nematophora 



Suborder Striaroidea 



Suborder Ascospermophora 



Suborder Lysiopetaloidea 



Suborder Stemmatoiuloidea 

 Order Opisthospermophora 



Suborder Symphyognatha 



Suborder Chorizognatha 



The preceding review of nomenclatorial changes and diversity shoxild help 

 to emphasize how unfortunate it has been that the International Rules make 

 no provision for regulating names above the level of family. It has long 

 seemed to some workers that confusion would be avoided and simplicity and 

 stability secured by extending the "type genus" concept above the rank of 

 family to affect the names of orders and intermediate groups. Such an exten- 

 sion of the idea, and a proper regard for priority in all cases, would have 

 prevented such unnecessary duplications as the following: in Verhoeff's 

 scheme, his order Schizocephala is antedated by Podochila of Bollman (1893) , 

 by Ancyrotricha Cook (1895), and Penicillata Latreille (1829) ; his super- 

 order Opisthandria corresponds precisely to Pentazonia of Brandt (1833) ; 

 his order Proterospermophora, as amended, to the revised Merocheta of Cook, 

 and this, in turn, to the earlier Polydesmoidea of Pocock; and his 

 Symphyognatha (1911-14) is identical with the Zygocheta of Cook and also 

 with the Juloidea and with the Julidae as used by Meinert and others. 



The senior author, having long been convinced of the desirability of having 

 some regular method for establishing ordinal names and of eliminating dupli- 

 cations due to personal points of view or idiosyncracies, made use of the 

 type concept, mentioned above, in which the ordinal name is based upon the 

 oldest or best known of the included families. Since most of the orders 

 were originally treated as families by early workers, application of this 

 principle has been much easier for diplopods than it would be for insects 

 or mammals. 



The arrangement and terminology which we have adopted, and which 

 we hope will meet with general approval, are given below. Of the twelve 

 orders recognized, all but the Glomeridesmida are represented in our fauna 

 by native species. It will be seen that for the second superorder under the 

 Chilognatha we retain the name Helminthomorpha, of which the Olognatha 

 of Silvestri (1897) and Eugnatha of Attems (1899) are exact synonyms. 



Class Diplopoda 

 Subclass Pselaphognatha 



Order Polyxenida 

 Subclass Chilognatha 

 Superorder Pentazonia 

 Order Glomerida 

 Order Glomeridesmida 



