184 THE GENUS PERIPATUS. 



General Characters of the Neotropical Species. 



With four spinous pads on the legs, and two papillae on the 

 anterior side of the foot. With generative aperture between 

 the legs of the penultimate pair. Dorsal white line absent, 

 and papillae arranged in a single row on the ridges of the skin. 

 Many of the primary papillae have a terminal portion slightly 

 constricted off from the main portion. Outer blade of jaw with 

 one minor tooth, inner blade with one minor tooth next the 

 main tooth (fig. 25), and a row of smaller minor teeth separated 

 from the latter by a diastema. Unpaired part of vas deferens 

 of great length. Ovary with oviducts entering its anterior end, 

 and attached to pericardial floor by a single band of great 

 length from the opposite end. Each oviduct provided with 

 a receptaculum seminis with double duct, and with a thin-walled 

 receptaculum ovorum. Ova minute without yolk. Embryos of 

 very different ages in same uterus, and births probably taking 

 place all the year round. Males generally smaller than females, 

 and frequently with a smaller number of legs. The number 

 of legs often inconstant in the same species in the same sex ; 

 in fact it may be said that the number of legs varies in all the 

 Neotropical species which are at all well known. The opening 

 of the nephridium of the fourth and fifth legs is on a papilla 

 which is quite separate from the third pad (fig. 11). 



Peripatus Edwardsii. 



Neotropical Peripatus from Caracas with a variable number 

 of legs — the smallest number being twenty-nine pairs and the 

 greatest thirty -four. Males with twenty-nine and thirty pairs 

 of legs, and tubercles on a varying number of the posterior legs. 

 The basal parts of primary papillcB are cylindrical. 



I propose to reserve the name Edwardsii for the Neo- 

 tropical species, which is best known, viz. that from Caracas. 

 This has been described by Ernst (No. 26) and Gaffron (No. 

 35). Whether the specimens obtained by Audouin and Milne- 

 Edwards from Cayenne and named Edwardsii by Blanchard 



