NOTES ON AMERICAN SPECIES OF PERIPATUS, WITH 

 A LIST OF THE KNOWN FORMS 



By AUSTIN HOBART CLARK 



While engaged in entomological investigations on the Isthmus 

 of Panama, Mr. August Busck collected a single specimen of a 

 species of Peripatus, which he found beneath a palm frond at La 

 Chorrera ; and in the course of their studies on the marine resources 

 of Porto Rico the naturalists of the United States Bureau of 

 Fisheries steamer " Fish Hawk " gathered two additional specimens 

 at Vieques, a small island off the southeastern corner of Porto Rico, 

 a locality where the genus was not previously known to occur. 



Our knowledge of the species of this genus is in the highest 

 degree fragmentary ; many species are known, but of none of them 

 do we know even approximately the geographical range. It thus 

 becomes incumbent upon all to whom opportunity may offer imme- 

 diately to record such specimens as may come under their notice in 

 order to accumulate records from which, in time, the geographical 

 distribution of the various forms may be accurately mapped. 



At the same time everyone who records species of Or o peripatus, 

 Peripatus, (with its various subgenera) or of the other genus occur- 

 ring in America, Metaperipatus, should take care that his specimens 

 are properly preserved and placed in some museum where they will be 

 easily accessible for review, for the species of the various genera 

 of this group, like the species of the king crabs, crinoids, and many 

 other ancient types are all cast, as it were, in the same mould, and it 

 is astonishingly easy to make mistakes in their determination. 



PERIPATUS (PERIPATUS) JUANENSIS Bouvier 



Peripatus juliformis (part) 1880. Peters, Sitszungsber. naturf. Freunde 



Berlin, 1880, pp. 29, 166. 

 Peripatus from Utiiado 1880. Sedgwick, Quart. Journ. Micros. Sci., vol. 28. 



pp. 479, 488. 

 Peripatus dominicce var. juanensis 1900. Bouvier, Bull. Soc. Ent. de France. 



1900, pp. 394, 395. — 1904. Bouvier, Nouv. Archives du Mus. d'Hist. nat. 



(4), vol. 3, pp. 7, 20. — 1906. Bouvier, Ann. des Sci. Nat. (9), vol. 2 



(zoologie), p. 266. 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 60, No. 17 



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