new Clasping -organ in a Centipede. 



623 



It is significant that the claspers may be correlated with 

 the femoral processes, but that, so tar as is known, the modi- 

 fication of the anal tergite and of the tibia of the anal leg 

 exists independently of the femoral processes and functionally 

 replaces them. 



That the femoral processes on the legs of the last pair are 

 a sexual character appertaining to the male cannot, 1 think, 

 be doubted ; and I suspect they will be found to be charac- 

 teristic of the majority of the species of Parotostigmus. If 

 this suspicion be well founded it will prove that most of the 

 described species have been based upon female examples. In 

 this connexion it is sio^nificant that Brolemann records both 



cox.fg 



External sexual organs of the male of a species of Parotostif/miis 

 fi'om Cachavi. 



A. Ventral view of posterior end of body, 19, 20, 21, nineteenth, twen 



tieth, and twenty-first leg-bearing somites ; st., sterna ; /., femora; 

 2)1.., pleura ; cox., coxal processes. 



B. Portion of tergum {tg. 21) of last leg-bearing somite and of the femur, 



with its process (pr.) furnished with posterior tuft of hair. 



P. deyiti'culatus, Poc, and P. scabricauda, Sauss., from 

 Guatemala. On geographical grounds it is, a priori, im- 

 probable that the Brazilian P. scabrtcauda exists also in 

 Guatemala. Hence I suggest that the examples referred by 

 Brolemann to P. scabricauda are the males of the species he 

 identified as P. denticulatus. If this be so, no fewer than 

 five species of the genus will be known in which this pecu- 

 liarity occui's in the male, namely, one from Guatemala, two 



