1899] AMERICAN SPECIES OF PERIPATUS 85 
occurrence of Peripatus in some localities not previously recorded— 
Mexico, Guadeloupe, and Antigua. He notes that the American forms 
agree in having lingual teeth formed by a chitinous cone whose in- 
ternal cavity opens by an apical orifice, in showing a clear dorsal 
median line usually attenuated to microscopic dimensions, and also a 
clear (probably sensory) organ on each side of the clear dorsal line in 
each of the grooves of the body. These organs are absent or atrophied 
in the African species (except P. tholloni) and in those of Oceania. 
But of greater interest is the note that the American species form 
small regional groups, more or less distinct, so that it may almost be 
predicted that each island of the Antilles has its particular species or 
variety. 
Wearing of the Green. 
ONE always welcomes a paper—however short—from Prof. Dr. August 
Gruber, so well known for his investigations on the Protozoa. One of 
his latest contributions (Ber. Naturf. Ges. Freiburg, xi. 1899, pp. 59- 
61) describes the prosperity of a colony of green amoebae which he 
observed for about seven years. The colony hailed from a water-basin 
in the Connecticut valley, and came to Europe in some dried bog-moss 
in a letter from Prof. Wilder. The green amoebae fed at first on what 
they could get in the vessel in which the bog-moss was placed; they 
devoured rotifers and various forms of rhizopods; but soon they and 
green specimens of Paramaeciwm bursaria were left in possession of the 
field of pure Freiburg water. No conjugation was observed, and, still 
more strange, no division, though crops of small forms appeared in 
continuous succession. The condition of prosperity was obviously to 
be found in the chlorophyll of the zoochlorellae in the amoebae, and 
in the sustained illumination. Samples placed in darkness soon came 
to an end. Thus Dr. Gruber has shown that organisms which are in 
ordinary circumstances holozoic may by the wearing of the green 
prosper for many years in a holophytic existence. 
Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. 
Writers of scientific papers, of text-books, and of museum-labels are 
ever too apt to judge of other people’s knowledge by their own. Now 
one may be no fool and yet be absolutely ignorant of many matters 
that the specialist has at his fingers’ ends. An author therefore 
should do himself the justice to remember that his papers may possibly 
be referred to by the general zoologist, or by the “ remote, unfriended, 
solitary” (and shall we add?) occasionally “slow” student, and he 
