Americana 



VOL. Ill, 



BROOKLYN, JULY, 1887. 



NO. 4. 



The Scolopendridse of the United States. 

 By Lucien M. Underwood, Ph. D. 



Through the kindness of the curators of the U. S. National Museum 

 I have had the opportunity to study its collection of Myriapoda 1 which 

 though not a large one is especially rich in the larger centipedes of this 

 country. Recent studies by Kohlrausch 2 and Meinert 3 have greatlv 

 modified the subject of specific determination in this family and have 

 reduced many of the species described by Newport, Wood, Koch, 

 Saussure and Porath so that an extensive array of synonyms stands as 

 the result of their labors. Characters now known to be individual have 

 been relied on hitherto as specific, and the study of larger numbers of 

 specimens has made in some instances sweeping reductions. As an ex- 

 ample forty specific names now stand as synonyms of Scolopendra 

 morsitans. ' 



1 There is a division among Zoologists as to the orthography of this word. The 

 orthography Myriapoda used above is in accordance with the usage of Newport, 

 Gervais, Lucas, Wood, Meinert, L. Koch, C. Koch, Bergsoe, Porath (earlier papers), 

 Palmberg, Ryder, Sager, Cope, Fanzago, Saussure, Humbert, Haase and De Borre. 

 The form Myriopoda is used by Karsch, Latzel, Packard, Stuxberg, Butler, Harger, 

 Peters and Porath (later papers). 



2 Gattungen und Arten der Scolopendriden, in Archiv fur Naturgeschichte, 

 issi, 50—132. 



:i Myriapoda Musei Cantabrigensis, Part I Chilopoda, in Proceedings American 

 Philosophical Society \ XXI, 161 — 233(1885). 



1 Of the 38 species of Scolopendra described by Newport in his classic (Trans. 



Linn. Society, 1844) only eight have not yet been reduced to synonyms. Of the 25 



desa ibed by Wood, nineteen are not now regarded as valid spe :ies and not one 



of the other six has been identified a second time. In the light of these tacts it is 



the part of wisdom to move slowly in the description of new species. 



Entomologica Americana. Vol hi. 10 July. iss;. 



