156 A NEW SPECIES OF PAUROPUS FROM VICTORIA 
extremely minute, measuring seldom more than 0:11 mm. in 
diameter. All the larval stages, comprising animals with 3, 5, 6 
and 8 pairs of legs can be found in abundance during the summer, 
in places where the adults are prevalent. 
There is no evidence that the animals are predaceous, as some 
writers on Pauwropus have inferred from the activity of their 
movements; nor do they seem to ingest solid vegetable material, 
for this is not recognizable in the distended intestine. The latter, 
indeed, contains nothing but fluid material. It seems that Pawropus 
subsists upon organic matter dissolved in the juices of the rotting 
vegetation within which it lives. 
Despite the agility of their movements the animals are much 
preyed upon by the more slowly moving pedipalps and predaceous 
mites that form part of the associated microfauna; and I have 
occasionally seen even adult animals that have fallen victim to 
their attack. 
Unlike one of the species described by Harrison (P. amicus), it 
cannot be said of P. silvaticus that it is markedly sociable in its 
habits. In captivity, it is true, the animals sometimes congregate 
under fragments of leaf or wood in the breeding receptacles, but 
I have not encountered this under natural conditions. Nor do the 
animals exhibit the remarkable maternal instinct of guarding 
their eggs, as observed by Harrison in P. amicus; indeed, the eggs 
are not laid in clumps, but, as already stated, are scattered about 
singly and at random amongst the rotting vegetation in which 
they live. 
REFERENCES 
1. Hansen, H. J. On the genera and species of the order Pauropoda. Vidensk. 
Meddel. d. nathist. Forening, Copenhagen, 1901, p. 323. 
2. Harrison, L. On some Pauropoda from New South Wales. Proc. Linn. Soc. 
N.S.W., 1914, xxxix, p. 615. 
3. Lubbock, J. On Pauropus, a new type of Centipede. Trans. Linn. Soc. 
London, 1868, xxvi, p. 181. 
