THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 41 



may be made inspectors for their respective districts. Fourthly, 

 Bird-sellers, exporters of bird skins, and officers of ships who make 

 a trade of live birds should have to pay an export duty equal to 

 the fine imposed on shooting birds out of season. The licenses 

 and fines, if strictly enforced, would amply cover all cost of 

 inspection ; as, for instance, take the case of the 857 pair of wild 

 fowl shipped at Geelong the morning the season opened. Now, 

 no one could say these birds were shot that morning, and must, 

 consequently, have been days before. The fine would have 

 amounted to ,£3,428. This, I think you will readily admit, would 

 effectually check the wholesale and illegal destruction of our 

 native birds. 



NATURALIST. 

 Windsor, 25th January, 1892. 



At the last meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria, Dr. 

 Dendy read some " Further Notes on the Oviparity of the 

 larger Victorian Peripatns, generally known as P. leuckartii." 

 He dealt at length with various criticisms upon his former 

 observations on the same subject, and pointed out that, as he 

 originally suggested, the larger Victorian species is probably not 

 P. leuckartii at all, which fact would explain the apparently con- 

 tradictory statements as to the mode of reproduction. P. 

 leuckartii has now been shown to be viviparous, as is usual in 

 the genus, and Dr. Dendy now brings forward additional evidence 

 pointing very strongly to the conclusion that the larger Victorian 

 species is normally oviparous, and at the same time recapitulates 

 the arguments previously adduced by him (but ignored by his 

 critics) in favour of this view. The evidence in favour of his 

 view may be briefly summed up as follows: — (1.) Fifteen eggs, 

 shown by their subsequent development to be indubitably those 

 of Peripatus, were laid in his vivarium last winter by a number 

 of animals kept in captivity. (2.) These eggs, after but not 

 before being laid, exhibited a beautifully and regularly sculptured 

 shell, as in many insects. (3.) Female specimens, dissected at 

 various times of the year, were never found with embryos in the 

 uterus, but generally with large undeveloped eggs. (4.) When 

 the eggs were first found, no embryo was recognizable inside 

 them, but only a quantity of yolk ; but in due course some of 

 the eggs developed until, after a period of 8 l /2 months from the 

 time of laying, a perfect young Peripatus was found in one of 

 the eggs, exhibiting all the appendages and even the commence- 

 ment of the characteristic pigmentation of the adult. We 

 consider that Dr. Dendy has completely defended the position 

 taken up by him in his earlier papers on the subject against the 

 somewhat heated and personal attack recently made upon him 

 by Mr. Fletcher in the " Proceedings of the Linnean Society of 

 New South Wales." 



