226 Royal Society : — 



dition. The animal has invariably seventeen pairs of ambulatory 

 members, a pair of oral papillae, and two pairs of horny hooked 

 jaws, shut in by tumid lips. The specimens found varied in 

 length from 1-6 to 7 centims. (iu the contracted condition). About 

 thirty specimens were found, all of them but oue at Wynberg, 

 between Simon's Bay and Cape Town. The animals appear to 

 be somewhat local and not very abundant ; they live in damp places 

 under trees, and especially frequent rotten willow-wood. They 

 feed on rotten wood. They are nocturnal in their habits. They 

 coil themselves up spirally like lulus when injured. They have a 

 remarkable power of extension of the body, and when walking 

 stretch to nearly twice the length they have when at rest. They 

 can move with considerable rapidity. They walk with the body 

 entirely supported on their feet. Their gait is not in the least 

 like that of worms, but more like that of caterpillars. When 

 irritated they shoot out with great suddenness from the oral 

 papillae a peculiarly viscid tenacious fluid, which forms a meshwork 

 of fine threads, with viscid globules on them at intervals, the whole 

 resembling a spider's web with the dew upon it. The fluid is 

 ejected at any injuring body, and is probably used in defence 

 against enemies, such as insects, which would be held powerless 

 for some time if enveloped in its meshes. The fluid is not 

 irritant when placed on the tongue, but slightly bitter and as- 

 tringent ; it is as sticky as birdlime : flies, when they alight in 

 it, are held fast at once. The fluid is structureless, but presents 

 an appearance of fine fibrillation when dry. The animal is best 

 obtained dead in an extended condition by drowning it in water, 

 which operation takes four or five hours. 



Only those points in anatomy are touched on which appear to 

 have hitherto been wrongly or imperfectly described. 



The intestinal tract is not straight, as described by Grrube, but 

 longer than the body, and usually presents one vertical fold ; it 

 presents numerous irregular sinuous lateral folds, but is not enlarged 

 in every segment, as stated by Grube. Special regions, a muscular 

 phaiyux, short cesophagus, long stomach, and short rectum, are 

 distinguished in the tract. The viscid fluid ejected from the oral 

 papillae is secreted by a pair of ramified tubular glands lying at 

 the sides of the stomach and stretching nearly the whole length 

 of the body. These glands are those described by Grrube as testes ; 

 they show a common glandular structure, but no trace of testicular 

 matter. A pair of enlargements on the ducts of the glands, pro- 

 vided with spirally arranged muscles, serve as ejaculatory reservoirs. 

 The lateral elongate bodies lying outside the nerve-cords, considered 

 by Grrube to be vessels, show a fatty structure, vary much in extent, 

 and are probably to be regarded as representing the fatty bodies of 

 Tracheata. 



No structure like that of the heart of Myriopods was found in 

 the dorsal vessel. 



The tracheal system consists of long fine tracheal tubes, which 

 very rarely branch : these arise, in densely packed buuches, from 



