No. 391.} REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 619 
Catalogue of the British Columbia Provincial Museum.' — It 
includes mammals, birds, fishes, insects, trees, plants, fossils, ethno- 
logical specimens, etc. The distribution of the species of mammals, 
as well as the source of the museum specimen, is given. A full check 
list of the birds of the province bears a special check mark oppo- 
site those lacking in the collection, in order that the friends of the 
museum may know what is most acceptable. Very little is yet known 
of the birds of the northern and eastern parts of British Columbia. 
The eggs are listed, but the study-series of bird-skins, which are 
available to all students, is not published in the catalogue. 
The ethnological collection is classified under several heads, as 
houses, dress, ceremony, craniology, etc. The introduction to this 
list differentiates the Indians of British Columbia from those of 
the Plains, and cautions one against drawing hasty conclusions of 
Japanese affinities or origin. Hirik 1. Suen 
The Systematic Position of Peripatus. — Since the discovery by 
Moseley of trachez in Peripatus, over twenty years ago, scarcely a 
doubt has been thrown upon the arthropod nature of this interesting 
animal. Recently” Boas, one of the most accurate students of the 
arthropods, has taken up the question of the affinities of the form in 
question, and after a careful consideration of its structure decides 
that it has nothing decidedly arthropodan in its make-up, but that in 
all deciding points it is clearly an annelid modified for a terrestrial life. 
It lacks the thick jointed cuticle characteristic of the arthropod, and 
its appendages are not arthropodan. It possesses the external cir- 
cular layer of muscles which is not found in any true arthropod, and 
all of its muscles are of the smooth variety. The eyes are upon the 
annelidan type; the nephridia are numerous ; the characteristic 
arthropodan hairs are lacking, while the claws, upon which so much 
weight has been placed, are built upon a different plan, being solid 
rather than hollow outgrowths. 
A few points need more space. The jaws of Peripatus are modi- 
fied appendages, according to both von Kennel and Sedgwick. Boas, 
however, points out that this jaw is but the terminal claw of Peri- 
patus and is not the whole limb. He also calls attention to the rela- 
tions of the parapodia to the mouth in the polynoid worms. The 
heart, like that of arthropods and unlike that of the annelid, is pro- 
1 A Preliminary Catalogue of the Collections of Natural History and Ethnology 
in the Provincial Museum, Victoria, British Columbia, 1898, p. 196, is being issued. 
2 Kgl. danske Vidensh, Selsk. Forhandlingar, 1898, No. 6 (1899). 
