ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
525 
rounding the yolk ; (2) a very thick membrane, which is apparently 
formed as a secretion in the thick-walled part of the oviduct ; (3) an egg 
partially extruded from the greatly extended ovipositor revealed the 
formation of a thin transparent membrane outside the thick one. 
Variety of Peripatus Novae Zealandiae.* — Prof. A. Dendy describes 
a new variety of Peripatus Novae Zealandiae from the North Island of 
New Zealand. The three specimens w’hich he has seen were of remark- 
ably large size, one, in particular, measuring 2J inches long, and being 
broad in proportion. The most remarkable peculiarity, however, lies in 
the fact that they all possess 1 6 pairs of claw-bearing legs instead of the 
usual 15. As no Australasian species of Peripatus has yet been found 
to vary in the number of its appendages, this is a very remarkable fact. 
Had it not been for the well-known variability of certain neo-tropical 
species in the number of their legs, Prof. Dendy would have been in- 
clined to regard the three specimens under discussion as specifically 
distinct. 
5. Araehnida. 
Parasitic Acarus.f — Dr. A. Gravel describes, under the name of 
Stylogamasus lampyridis, an Acarus which he has found parasitic in large 
numbers on some females of Lampyris splendidula. Although the para- 
sites are numerous when found, specimens of Lampyris infected are very 
rare. The author gives a preliminary account of this new parasite, of 
which he promises a full and illustrated description. On the whole it 
approaches the Gamasidae, but differs by its styliform mandibles and its 
genital armature. If it is not anatomically a true parasite it is a phy- 
siological one, for if the host on which it lives be placed under con- 
ditions which are unfavourable to it, the parasite detaches itself and 
dies. 
€. Crustacea. 
Early Crustacea.^ — Dr. H. Woodward took as the subject of his 
anniversary address to the Geological Society, the life-history of the 
Crustacea in early Palaeozoic times. He comes to the, conclusion that 
the ancient faunae of the earth were far more wide-spread, more simple, 
and more uniform than are our recent faunae, and if, as the researches 
of geologists seem to indicate, other sedimentary rocks exist older than 
the Lower Cambrian, then we may expect to gather evidence of still 
earlier and more simple forms of life than we meet with in the “ Ole- 
nellus” zone. Dr. Woodward thinks that we are fully justified in con- 
cluding that such must actually have existed, because we find in the 
Lower Cambrian evidences of a quite considerable fauna belonging to 
several divisions, which, although lowly in themselves, are already so 
clearly differentiated one from the other as to prove to us that we are 
still, both biologically and chronologically, very far removed from the 
commencement of life on the earth. 
Histology of Unicellular Glands.§ — MM. J. Kunstler and A. Gravel 
have recently made a study of the Hipperinse , in which the unicellular 
* Trans. N.Z. Inst., xxvii. (1894) pp. 190 and 1. 
f Arch. Zool. Exper. et Gen., iii. (1895) pp. ix. and x. 
t Nature, lii. (1895) pp. 114-8. § Comptes Rendus, cxxi. (1895) pp. 226-8. 
