184 IDENTITY OF THE AUSTRALIAN PERIFATUS, 
longitudinal stripes of blue and orange or their equivalents — three 
of the former and four of the latter; or red with two of the dark 
stripes represented only by blackish blotches and discontinuous 
irregular patches. With an interesting series of more or less 
gradational colour-varieties arising from some modification of the 
following pattern : the dorsal surface is a mosaic of three longi- 
tudinal series of roughly hexagonal or lozenge-shaped areas 
outlined in dark upon a lighter background, bordered on each side 
by a light longitudinal stripe immediately above the insertion of 
the legs; the lozenges of the median series are confluent, the 
boundaries between them having disappeared, they correspond 
with the legs, and down the middle of the series dividing it 
symmetrically is a dark — blue, black, or rarely red — line often 
presenting as it were a knot-like enlargement in the middle of 
each lozenge, the dark line having down the centre of it a fine 
unpigmented sometimes interrupted groove. From the relative 
proportions of blue and orange or their equivalents present, from 
the partial or more or less complete disappearance of the dark 
reticulate pattern, or from the subdivision of the median series of 
lozenges into two sets of four-sided or diamond-shaped areas result 
some very interesting and, without a series for examination, some- 
times very puzzling combinations. The legs sometimes appear as 
if inserted on a dark longitudinal stripe. The colour of the 
ventral surface is paler, but not less varied than that of the dorsal 
surface; generally speaking, it presents shades of the predominant 
tints of the dorsal surface. A discontinuous median series of 
small pale areas devoid of papillae down the middle of it (ventral 
organs), one or sometimes two to each pair of legs. 
As in P. novw-zealandice, the generative opening is between 
the legs of the last pair; the claw-bearing legs have three spinous 
pads; and a primary papilla projects from the median dorsal 
portion of the foot. 
H ah. — In suitable situations in the table-land and coastal 
regions of Queensland and New South Wales, widely distributed 
but not abundant; Victoria; Tasmania; and West Australia. 
