AETHROPOD PAUNA OP THE WEST INDIES. 525 



strongly with the rest of the appendage, which is deep black ; 

 the back of the head is also pale, apparently somewhat as iu 

 P. torquatus ; the sides of the body are purplish brown, the middle 

 portion of the upper surface is pale reddish brown, obscurely 

 mottled, and marked with a deep-coloured median dorsal line. 

 The external surface of the legs is pale coloured, and not of the 

 same tint as the upper surface of the body. 



There are 29 pairs of legs, as in one of the specimens men- 

 tioned by Dr. Grabham and Mr. Cockerell. 



The large and small papillae are arranged as in the female 

 Jamaican specimens ; but the former are distinctly antero-pos- 

 teriorly compressed, and appear in outline to be conical or 

 cylindrical, the variation in form depending upon the aspect from 

 which they are examined. Each supports, as usual, a shorter or 

 longer button-shaped or subcylindrical setiferous distal portion. 



In addition to the specimens from the above-mentioned islands, 

 unidentified examples of Peripatus have been reported from 

 Cuba, Porto Eico, St. Thomas, and St. Croix. 



Supplementary Note. 



Since the above was written, three additions have been made to 

 the literature of West-Indian Peripatidae. The first is a paper 

 by Dr. G-rabham, published in vol. i. of the ' Journal of the Insti- 

 tute of Jamaica,' p. 217, in which further information respecting 

 P. jamaicensis is to be found. 



From this paper it appears that in the females o^ P. jamaicensis 

 the legs vary in number from 29 to 43. The colour, moreover, also 

 varies considerably. Some examples are entirely black above, in- 

 cluding the antennae, and dark brown on the underside ; others are 

 pink or flesh-coloured, with a row of rusty -red markings along the 

 back, and the extremities of the antennae are pure white. It is 

 interesting to note that the embryos taken from parents of 

 either type of coloration have white-tipped antennae and flesh- 

 coloured mottled skins like those of the second type. Sub- 

 sequently Mr. Cockerell (Zool. Anz. xvi, p. 341) has proposed 

 names for these two iovms oi P. jamaicensis. But since they 

 appear to be neither varieties nor species, this author terms them 

 mutations. Thus we have " mutation " Gossei," with reddish 

 skin and white-tipped antennae, and " mutation " Sivainsonce, with 

 black skin and uniformly coloured antennae. 



