SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ON PAUROPUS. 187 



general agreement of opinion thai they do not represent the three pairs of legs anion g 

 insects. Savigny regarded them as abdominal appendages ; Leuckart considered them to 

 represent the mandibles and two pairs of maxillae in insects; Siebold and Zaddach, 

 though differing as to the true nature of the anterior appendages, agreed in regarding 

 the first three pairs of legs in Arachnida as corresponding with the second pair of 

 maxillae and first two pairs of legs in insects, while Huxley refers them to the two pairs 

 of maxillse and the first pair of legs. The same opinion has been adopted by Claparede; 

 and it must be admitted that these two eminent observers have brought forward verv 

 strong arguments in favour of the view advocated by them. Moreover it must be re- 

 membered that the six embryonal legs of Myriapods do not belong to three consecutive 

 segments, as ought to be the case if they represented the three pain of legs in insects. In 

 lulus, for instance, the three pairs are situated on the second, third, and fifth segments K 

 This agreement in the number of legs between the insect and the young Centipede has 

 not, then, that significance which we might at first sight he disposed to attach to it. 



Nevertheless the fact that Centipedes commence life with no more legs than other 

 Arthropods, and only acquire by degrees their most obvious characteristic, is very im- 

 portant ; and as what is true of all the species may be reasonably concluded to have 

 been true of the whole group, we might have inferred a priori that, although, in the words 

 of Newport, " there are never fewer than twelve segments and eleven pairs of legs in any 

 genus of Myriapoda"f, still there must have been at one time species possessing a smaller 

 number of appendages. 



The genus Fauropus, which I am now describing, is in fact such a form, and possesses 

 only nine pairs of legs, which is less by two pairs than any form previously known, and 

 tends therefore to a considerable extent to fill up the gap. The paucity of legs, how ever, 

 is only one of the very interesting peculiarities which it presents. 



In fact the mere possession of a small number of legs need not by itself indicate such 

 a link ; for we might reasonably expect to find this character, not only among the trans- 

 itional forms which must lead up to the typical Myriapod, but also at the other end of 

 the series, among the more highly organized and fully developed members of the group. 

 Such I take to be the case with the Scutigeridae and Lithobiidae, which, anions all the 





hitherto known species, possess the smallest number of legs. " The form of the head, 

 says Newport, " of the Scutigeridae, the long setaceous antenn;e, the prehensile forcipated 

 mandibles, the elongated palpi, the projecting compound organs of vision, the elongation 

 of the limbs, and the more compact form of body are all indications of a higher degree of 

 organization in this family than in others of the same class, and place it as much above 

 the other genera of Myriapoda as the most complete organization of the predaceous Cicin- 

 dela places that genus at the head of true insects" %. If Scuiiger represents Cicindela, 

 Zitkobius may be regarded as holding the same relation to Carotin*; and in the one as in 

 the other the small number of legs must be regarded as a result of adaptation, and not 

 as an indication of affinity; they are the highest and most developed forms of the 



* In Polydesmus, on the contrary, they are on the second, fourth 

 apparently, therefore, belong to different segments in the two genera. 

 f Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xix. p. 269. 



The second pair of legs, 



X L. c. p. 349. 



