46 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



of them a whip scorpion, a huge beetle larva, a small snake, 

 with a faint band about its neck (Homalocraniiim melano- 

 cephalum) and most interesting of all, a Peripatus. 



Perhaps the reader here wonders to himself what a Peripatus 

 is, and it is a pity that this most imi^ortant creature has 

 no common name. We may call it a worm-like caterpillar 

 or a caterpillar-like worm, for its claim to fame rests upon 

 its position as a so-called missing link. We know that in 

 long ages past the ancestor of the butterflies, beetles, wasps, 

 spiders and crabs was a worm-like creature, primitive in 

 structure and in no way hinting of the beautiful organisms 

 which were to Ijc evolved in succeeding epochs. Hiding 

 away from light, in the warm moisture of decaying wood, the 

 little Peripatus has lived on and on, age after age, with little 

 apparent change, until we fmd it to-day combining the simpler 

 characters of the lowly worms with those of the vastly higher 

 caterpillars. 



The Peripatus which we unearthed, or rather unlogged, 

 was of a rich, dark reddish hue. It was caterpillar-like in 

 general appearance, but not divided into segments, while the 

 numljcr of its very simple feet and its method of progression 

 brought to mind the millipedes. The long, slender antenna; 

 were constantly in motion, changing and extending, feeling 

 about and retracting. 



Glancing at the leaf of a low shrub, we saw what we sup- 

 posed to be two bits of dried, roUed-up leaf entangled in a 

 strand of spider web and being whirled about by the wind. 

 When we saw that this motion continued after the breeze had 

 died down, we became interested. We discovered that the 

 two objects were tineid moths of a dark pearl color, waltz- 

 ing about with the most graceful and airy motion imaginable. 

 With closed wings they whirled round and round bv means 

 of their legs alone, and, most remarkably, both going in the 

 same direction, although this was frequently changed, the 



