ON THE FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS AND THE 



FIRST STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF PERIPATOPSIS 



DEWAALI (M, WEBER), 



BY 

 Dr. P. N. VAN KAMPEN. 



(From the Zoological Laboratory, Uuiversity of Amsterdam). 



With Plate I and 1 Text-fioure. 



^Peripatus DeiraalP' was founded by Prof. Max Weber in a 

 short note ') on some specimens collected by him near Knysna 

 in the Cape Colony. According to the classification foliowed by 

 Bouvier in his well-known monograph -) this species belougs 

 to the genus Peripatopsis '^ its nearest relatives are P. Sedgwicki 

 Pure. and Moseleyi AVood-Mason, the very species which Bouvier 

 regards as the most primitive of the genus. With P. Sedgwicki 

 P. Dewaali has in common the number of ambulatory legs (20 

 pairs, all of which, including the last and strongly reduced one, 

 are claw-bearing). I should regard both species as identical, if 

 P. DeivaaU did not differ from the description of P. Sedgwicki in 

 one important character : the ovaries in this species, according to 

 Bouvier, are closely united, whereas in P. Deimall they are free 

 from each other, except at their extremity. 



In a series of transverse sections through a female specimen 

 of P. Deicaali^ belonging to the original ones collected by Prof. 



1) Tijdschi'. Nedei-1. Dierkundige Vereenigiug, (2) dl. 5, 1898, Verslagen, \^. Vil. 



2) Monographie des Onychophores. Ana. Sc. nat.. Zool, (9) T 2, 1905, and 

 T. 5, 1907. 



1 



