XXXVll 



yellow species, found in old buildings the other smaller, dark brown, and 

 with a stout tail, pecuhar to the mountains. The former is somewhat like 

 the description of Scorpio Americanus. Polydesmus Drurii, Newp., and 

 luhis Beauvolsii, P. Gerv., are frequent in rotten timber in the forests of 

 Martinique. For another species of Polydesmus, common here and in 

 Barbados I can find no name. I have taken several species of Scolopendra, 

 which, notwithstanding their size (4 — 6 inches in length), are difficult to 

 identify. On the 5th February I collected some individuals of S. 2^latypus, 

 Brandt., one being a female with white young ones, 4i lines long. These 

 have twenty-one pairs of legs like the adults, and are in all respects 

 perfectly formed. When all the Scolopendrce were inclosed together in a 

 tin box the young ones had the instinct to select their own mother, and to 

 attach themselves, to the number of thirty or forty, to her under-side and 

 legs. The colours of this species fade after death, and it may be remarked 

 that the descriptions of authors, usually made from examples preserved in 

 alcohol, convey no idea of the colours during life. The head and antennae 

 of platypus are of a bluish green ; the body pale brown, with the hinder or 

 reflexed margin of each segment bluish ; the legs are lemon-yellow, except 

 the hindmost pair, which are pale brown. After death the whole animal 

 becomes dull ferruginous. A species of Scolopocryptops (a genus destitute 

 of eyes), which I captured in the forests of Martinique, appears to be a novelty, 

 and as I have at hand the description of it which I prepared, I may as well 

 give it here : — 



Scolopocryptops Antillarum, n. sp. 

 Dark ferruginous. Antennae 17-jointed; joints 1 — 7 stout; 1 — 3 glabrous, 

 flattened, quadrilateral ; 8 — 17 of much smaller diameter, pilose, 

 cylindrical, tapering to the apex, but not diminishing in length. 

 Labrum transverse, feebly convex, sparsely and not deeply punctured, 

 as broad as the head, subhexagonal, anteriorly depressed, and the sides 

 produced into blunted angles. Cephalic shield punctate. Segments 

 minutely and sparingly puuctulate, laterally margined, and with faint 

 indications of three longitudinal striae, interrupted. Segment 2 very 

 short, annular ; the alternate segments throughout shorter than the 

 others, except the last, which exceeds the penultimate in length, is 

 bidentate at the hinder angles, and rounded between them, at the 

 apex. Pra^anal plate seaii-elliptical, depressed laterally, irregularly 

 and feebly punctulate. The two hindmost pairs of legs elongated. 

 The femoral joint of the last pair subcylindiical, canaliculated 

 beneath, unarmed above, and with a single sharp tooth on its 

 inferior surface about one-third from the base— a character which 

 distinguishes the species from those described by Walckenaer and 

 Gervais. Length '6 inches. 



