398 ARTHUR DENDY. 



than any other observer, having collected in a single summer 

 579 adult specimens of the viviparous New South Wales 

 species (P. Leuckartii), of which 390 were females.^ Writing 

 in 1897; Mr, Steel observes (2) : " I desire to place on record 

 the occurrence in New South Wales of P. oviparus, Dendy, 

 the Victorian form of Peripatus. While collecting in 

 January of this year, between Exeter and Bundanoon (Moss 

 Vale district), on turning over a log I noticed a Peripatus^ 

 ■which from its attitude and general appearance specially 

 attracted my attention. This proved to be a female specimen 

 of the above species, and, so far as I am aware, this is the 

 first occasion on which its occurrence in this colony has been 

 definitely recorded. The lozenge-shaped pattern which 

 characterises most of the specimens found in Victoria is well 

 displayed ; and the fact of the ovipositor being fully extruded 

 in the specimen, which I now exhibit, is sufiicient guarantee 

 of its identity. When visiting the Australian Museum a few 

 days ago, I had an opportunity of examining the specimens 

 of Peripatus preserved there, and I was interested in 

 noticing that those collected by Mr. Helms in 1889 at Mount 

 Kosciusko belong to the same species. All of the females in 

 the museum collection from that locality which I examined 

 have the ovipositor plainly visible, and in many of them it is 

 fully extruded." 



The difficulty of distinguishing 0. oviparus from P. 

 Leuckartii (except by the ovipositor) was forcibly illus- 

 trated in the case of the Queensland specimens collected by 

 Professor Baldwin Spencer at Cooran. '' After long search- 

 ing," says Professor Spencer (1), " I came across Peripatus 

 Leuckartii, very dark purple in colour, and evidently similar 

 to the typical form and without the curious diamond-shaped 

 markings characteristic of the Victorian form. Though 

 searching hard, I only found nine specimens altogether, and 

 all these close to 'Cooran." I myself also believed these 

 specimens (one of which I still have in my possession) to 

 belong to the viviparous species P. Leuckartii, and have 

 . 1 Steel (1). 



