Mr. H. N. Moseley on Peripatus novse-zealandise. 89 



3rcl. That the animal breeds all the year round. I was 

 astonished to find it breeding in mid-winter (July). 



4th. The observation of the mode of birth. 



Captain Hutton's reference to the geographical distribution 

 of Peripatus is extremely apposite. He might have added 

 Australia to the list of regions in which Peripatus occurs. Its 

 occurrence in Australia, the West Indies, Chili, New Zealand, 

 and the Cape is additional evidence to its structure of its great 

 antiquity. I am not without hope that its horny jaws may 

 some day turn up in the fossil condition in strata older than the 

 Carboniferous ; for of such age must Peripatus be if it be a re- 

 presentative of the Protracheata. 



The fact that two pairs of jaws are formed from the modi- 

 fication of one ambulatory member, being simply the slightly 

 specialized pairs of foot-claws, would seem to point to the pos- 

 sibility that in Myriopoda and other tracheates the two pairs 

 of maxillae may possibly be derivable from one segment only. 



My friend Prof. E. Ray Lankester has drawn my attention 

 to a late pajDcr by Mr. J. F. Bullar *, of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, in which the conclusion is arrived at that five species 

 of parasitic Isopoda are hermaphrodite and probably self- 

 impregnating. And Mr. Lankester suggested to me that pos- 

 sibly an error in observation has here occurred similar to that 

 fallen into by Captain Hutton in the case of Peripatus^ viz. 

 that spermatophores or portions of them have been mistaken 

 for testes. A result so remarkable and apparently improbable 

 as the determination of tlie existence of hermaphroditism 

 amongst the Arthropoda should certainly not be admitted with- 

 out the very strongest evidence. No description whatever of 

 the finer structure of the supposed testes in the Isopoda ex- 

 amined by Mr. Bullar is given in the paper in question ; and 

 the figures do not give evidence of any testicular tissue. Ap- 

 parently only spermatozoa have been observed in the supposed 

 testes and what seem to be spermatophores (pi. iv. fig. 6). 

 Of testis-cells and vesicles of evolution no mention at all is 

 made ; yet if such had been observed it is very unfortunate 

 that in a case of such importance they should not have been 

 described, since it is they and not spermatozoa which consti- 

 tute a testis. For evidence that large masses of spermatozoa 

 may occur in a female Arthropod in the closest relation with 

 the ovary, I would refer to my figure of the ovary of Peripatus 

 capensis (Phil. Trans. I. c. pi. Ixxiv. fig. 1). It is possible that 

 an external opening to the oviduct may exist in earlier stages 



* " The Generative Organs of Parasitic Isopoda,'' Journal of Anat. 

 and Physiol, vol. xi. part 1, Oct. 1876, p. 118. 



