THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 69 
On examining the skin one notices two kinds of hair, 
long shiny hairs with thin stems and broad paddle-like tips 
and short, soft, dense fur. Skins prepared for rugs and such 
like frequently have the long hair plucked out. I am not able 
to show you an egg, but the portion of egg-shell which is here 
is sufficiently interesting to be worth looking at. I know of 
no more delightful description of the homes, haunts and habits 
of Platypus than that of that fine old naturalist, the late Dr. 
George Bennett, in his ‘“‘Gatherings of a Naturalist.’’ For the 
loan of the beautiful stuffed specimen exhibited I am indebted 
to our fellow member, Mr. C. Coles. 
Amongst the creatures for which Australia is famous must 
‘be mentioned another which, like the Platypus, is quite a 
‘classic in the animal kingdom, and one in the study of which 
I have taken a keen interest for many years past, that is 
Peripatus. Briefly the reason why this little creature is re- 
garded with so much interest is that it is a surviving ances- 
tral type, which, like Ceratodus, has come down to us from 
distant geological periods, surviving through all the ages 
crowded with change and with the appearance and disappear- 
-ance of countless competing organisms. And yet this feeble, 
lowly caterpillar-like animal has remained through it all, 
practically unchanged in the midst of change, giving us one 
of our rare glimpses of the living form of important organic 
‘types of distant geological periods. Peripatus represents the 
point in development from which sprang the two important 
orders, Annelida and Tracheata. In other words, Peripatus 
better than any other living creature retains in a Tracheate 
‘animal the annelid characters of the remote ancestor. The 
Tracheata includes all insects, and we have strong evidence 
ithat from annelid or worm-like ancestors sprung through Peri- 
patus all our varied insects. Peripatus represents the fork in 
‘the genealogical tree at the spot where the annelids or seg- 
mented worms, breathing by their skin surface, became sepa- 
rated from the Tracheata which breathe by means of trachea 
or tubes running through the body. In Australia we have 
some five acknowledged species of Peripatus. A good many 
other species have been found in isolated spots in different 
parts of the world where the conditions chance to have been 
favourable for their survival. Thus, for example, species occur 
in New Zeland, New Britain, 8S. Africa, S. America, West 
‘Indian Islands, and a few other places, but nowhere com- 
mon, and in most places exceeding scarce and difficult to 
find. For a long time it was supposed that all the species 
were viviparous, as most of them undoubtedly are, but some 
