265 
Mr. H. N. Moseley on the Species of Peripatus. 
as an offensive act, and that the fluid is highly irritant, even 
causing blindness sometimes, according to the natives. (Archiv 
fur Naturg. 1839, Bd. i. p. 175.) 
(5) Blanchard considered Milne-Edwards’s specimens to 
have belonged to a different species from Guilding’s, and 
named Edwards’s species P. Edwardsii from the descriptions 
published. (Ann. des Sci. Nat. 3 e ser. t. viii. 1847, pp. 139, 
140.) 
(6) Grube (“ Ueber den Bail von Peripatus Edwardsii ,” 
Muller’s Arch. 1853, p. 322) obtained specimens of Peripatus 
from Venezuela, in the neighbourhood of Colonia Jovvar. 
These he referred to Peripatus Edwardsii. 
The principal distinction hitherto made between the various 
species of Peripatus appears to be in the numbers of feet. A 
difficulty occurs, because the first pair of feet are mere tuber¬ 
cles without claws, and perforated by the apertures of the 
ejaculatory ducts of the slime-glands. The last pair of limbs 
also in some species (P. capensis , e. g.) appear as tubercles only. 
Hence some mistake may occur in the counting of the num¬ 
bers of the feet in the various species. Guilding and Milne- 
Edvvards appear both to have mistaken the pair of tubercles 
perforated by the ducts (oral papillae) for eyes. 
Guilding describes his species ( juliformis ) as having thirty- 
three pairs of feet, not including the oral papillae. 
M.-Edwards and Audouin describe their specimens (P. Ed¬ 
wardsii, Blanchard) as having thirty pairs of feet besides the 
papillae. 
Wiegmann found the same number (thirty) in his Colum¬ 
bian specimen, and concluded that the number must vary with 
age, because Guilding found thirty-three pairs in his St.-Vin¬ 
cent specimen. 
Grube found twenty-nine pairs in one of his three speci¬ 
mens from Venezuela, and thirty in the two others. Never¬ 
theless in his figure (l. c. Taf. ix. fig. 1) thirty-one pairs are 
plainly to be counted besides the oral papillae. It is doubtful 
whether the counting of the feet is an error or the drawings 
are incorrect. 
Dr. Gunther’s specimen of Peripatus from the Amazons has 
thirty-one pairs of feet besides the oral papillae, just as in 
Grube’s figui’e. 
Further, the late Mr. Thomas Belt kindly permitted me to 
examine a specimen of a Peripatus referred to by him, in his 
‘Naturalist in Nicaragua’*, as “ a Myriapod of the division 
Su/jentia of Brandt.” This specimen, which is dried, has 
* The * Naturalist in Nicaragua,’ by T. Belt, F.G.S. London: John 
Murray, 1874, p. 140. 
