The Zoologist — January, 18G7. 567 



The President exhibited specimens and magnified drawings of a new Myriapod, 

 about one twenty-fifth of an inch in length, and remarkable not only for its small size 

 but for the small number of legs, having only nine pairs : he found it not unfrequently 

 in his kitchen-garden, among decaying leaves and in other similar situations. It 

 might at first si^ht be taken for a larva, but he had watched many specimens for 

 nearly two months, and during that time they had not undergone any further change 

 or exhibited signs of further development; moreover, some of the males contaiued 

 spermatozoa, which showed that they were mature. The first pair of legs was 

 attached to the segment immediately succeeding the head, the other eight pairs to the 

 four following segments; the youngest specimens were provided wilh only three pairs 

 of legs, there was no eight-legged stage, but at a single moult they changed from 

 three pairs to five pairs, and afterwards to sis, seven, eight and nine, acquiring a new 

 pair at each successive moult. The animal was white in colour, active in habit, 

 intelligent in appearance, and frequently occupied itself in cleaning its feet with its 

 mouth, after the manner of a fly or cat. In many other points it differed from all 

 centipedes, of which the President believed it to constitute a new type; the Myriapods 

 were separated from other Arthropods by so broad a division that any form which 

 even teuded to bridge over the gap was of very great interest : he proposed to give a 

 history of the transformations of this novelty, and to describe it under the generic 

 name of Pauropus, in allusion to the paucity of feet. 



Prof. Westwood remarked that a certain identity of size appeared to run through 

 particular groups, and this had hitherto seemed to be the case with the Myriapoda as 

 with other Orders; the general run of Centipedes ranged (say) from ten inches down 

 to an inch or an inch and a half; it was therefore very remarkable to meet with one of 

 the almost microscopic dimensions of that exhibited (though the genus Pollyxinus 

 made some approximation to it in size), and he should have been inclined to resort to 

 the theory that it was an immature larval form, but for the observations of the Presi- 

 dent, which seemed to be conclusive on that head. 



The Secretary exhibited, on behalf of Mr. VV. Rogers, a singularly pale variety of 

 the female of Hipparchia Janira, captured at Tooting on the 6th of September; and a 

 specimen of Rumia cratsegata, bred from a pupa found in an old fence at Tooting 

 during the present year, in which the left fore wing aud the right hind wing (with the 

 exception of a slight tinge at their outer margins) were pure white, whilst the body 

 and the other two wings were of the ordinary yellow, and of not less than the usual 

 brightness and depth of colour. The specimen could be regarded only as a mon- 

 strosity, or lusus naturw ; it was as if Nature had fallen short of colouring matter, and 

 had determined that such matter as she had should be employed as far as it would go 

 in the perfect colouring of certain parte, and should not be equably diffused over the 

 whole surface so as to produce an insect faint and pale throughout ; the transverse or 

 cruciform fashion, however, in which the colouring of the parts had been completed 

 was curious. 



The Secretary exhibited some Egyptian beans, sent "from a Greek firm," which 

 on the outside appeared perfectly sound, whilst in the inside of many there was "a 

 peculiar worm," some of which were found alive and were forwarded " for the use of 

 the Society." The "peculiar worm" proved to be the perfect form of a species of 

 Bruchus. 



