TWO NEW SPECIES OF ONTCHOPHOEA. 529 



On looking through the list of sub-families given on page 

 8, we note that three of them are represented in Africa, 

 which is a rather significant fact, while only one of them is 

 found in America. If it were granted that Central America 

 and the Caribbean Region were the centres from which the 

 Peripatidag dispersed, the presence in the Malay Region 

 of such primitive forms would be a problem of great 

 difficulty, which would have to be solved. Besides, the 

 Australasian forms are much more closely allied to the 

 Malay species than to the Neotropical ones — another telling 

 fact which tends to make Bouvier^s view impossible. 



It seems that there are two views to choose between, each 

 of which seems more satisfactory than the one adopted by 

 Bouvier. It may be concluded that the centre of origin of 

 the Peripatid.tj was somewhere in Africa, and that they 

 travelled in one direction towards America and in another to 

 the Malay Region, and finally to Australasia; or it may be 

 concluded that the ancestral Peri pat us had an exceedingly 

 wide distribution, ranging over a tract of land stretching 

 from South and Central America to South Africa, and across 

 to the Malay Region. When this tract of laud became partly 

 submerged, the widely distributed Peripatidae became 

 separated in groups corresponding to the unsubmerged 

 continents. Every group then developed along one or 

 more lines of evolution. The American forms kept to one 

 line oF evolution; the African species seem to have branclied 

 off in three directions; the Malay forms adhered to one plan 

 of development; the Australasian species, likewise, followed 

 one course, and finally the New Britain form has gone along 

 a line of its own. 



It seems that there are at present no means of deciding 

 between the above-mentioned views. The adoption of the 

 latter view would certainly enable us to explain the occur- 

 rence of one primitive feature in one, and of another in 

 another genus. It seems that we must wait until more is 

 known of the specific characters of the Peripatidae before 

 we can decide with certainty between the two views above 



