IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 11 August 1909, Page 13

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

A STRANGE LINK WITH THE PAST. REPULSIVE, BUT INTERESTING. (Bt James Duummoxd, F.L.S., F.Z.S.) A very short but very interesting note readied sac some time ago from Mr James Dall, of Rockville, Collingwood, Kelson. Mr Dall is a busy man, but he is advanced in years, and he does not feel inclined to rashly enter upon laborious literary work He has half-promised to ■write ma a longer letter later on. In the meantime he eaj-s : " There are few things which I have proved definitely that may 6ave naturalists a good deal of time and expense. One of the mo.-t important of these is in regard to the breeding habits of the peripatus. I happened to have a 6pecda)ly large one in a box overnight. In the morning I found 11 young ones . besides the parent. Each one was perfectly formed, with the remarkable cheating, feet, ' colour, and everything the same as the parent, showing tha6 there' was co intermediate stage of the egg or chrysalis." Any fresh information relating to tiie peripatus will be a welcome addition to the Dominion's knowledge of it* own fauna, and there are many naturalists who, will Hope that Mr- Dall will .be able to xecord more of his observations. The peripatus is in the same position as the tuatara. It is a link- Between great groups of living animaL, and also between the present and the past, whose, mysteries have a. wonderful fascination for investigators. It is a caterpillar-like, slow-mov-ing, light-shunning, almost blind, and ■very repulsive creature. It is about 2in long, and bluish-grey in colour ; and a pair of antennae move out in front of it as it crawls slowly along on its 14 or 15 pairs of stumpy, clawed f«et. It is a link between the worms and the arthopoda, which includes the crustaceans, the insects, the spiders, and- , other animals : and it is regarded as a survivor of an ancestral type of insecte. Although it has been under observation by New Zealand scientists, who have described it internally and externally, it has not, apparently, been closely observed in its natural habitat* ; and there 'is still a good deal that the world would like to know of its history and habits. New Zealand can claim exclusive possession of the famous tuatara, but she shares with - sev.eral countries the honour of possession of- this other living fossil. .The peripatus has been found in the West Indian Islands, the northern part of South America, Chili, Sumatra, Capo Colony, Victoria, Queenskuul, and Tasmania, as well as New Zealand. This is an extraordinary distribution. As far as is known, all t»he species' live -beneath the bark of trees, in the crevices of rotten stumps, and under stones and decaying leaves. Hating the light and drought, they are usually found in dark and damp places. They are nocturnal, and investigations show that the only function of their eyes, apparently, is to distinguish 'light from darkness. One of their peculiarities is a power to shoot out a viscid fluid to a distance of about a foot. Captain Hutton, when he had some living specimens under observation, saw one of them shoot its fluid at a fly, which had been introduced into the jar in which the creature was confined. The fluid struck the fly down, and the peripatus then went up to it and sacked its juices, rejecting ths whole of the integument. It can turn its head round towards any part of the body that is being irritated, and violently discharge the slime at the offending object. When it takes its walks abroad, it moves the antennae up and down and round about like feelers. Captain Hutton once placed an upright needle immediately in front of a peripatus, and the antenna was drawn past without actual contact, although the points of the hairs probably touched the needle. So much interest is talcen in this humble and lowly animal that several attempts were made to send living specimens to England, so that they might be studied by savants at the- colleges there. When the Challenger was in Wellington in June, 1874, on its scientific expedition round the -world, Professor H. M. Moseley, the naturalist of the expedition, obtained about 50 specimens from the Hutf Valley. Many of them -were collected by the late Mr W. T. L. Travers, and Professor Moseley Teports • that they were then very plentiful in the district. The first- living specimens taken from NewZealand to England were sent from Wellington by Mr Noel Barraud. Two unsuccessful attempts were made— the first two lots dying soon after the vessel reached Rio Janeiro, — but in the third attempt Mr E. J. Evans, chief officer of the Tainui, found a place near the cold chamber where the atmosphere in the tropics was not too high for the sensitive animals, and they lived to see England. There they were handed over to Professor Adam Sedgwfck, who has written a classical monograph on the whole family. "Peripatus," he says, "though a lowly organised animal, and of remarkable sluggishness, with but slight development of the higher organ of sense, with eyes the only function of which is to enable it to avoid the light — though related to "those animals most repulsive to the aesthetic sense of man, animals which crawl upon their bellies and spit at or poison their prey— is yet, strange to say, an anraial of striking beauty. The exquosite sensitiveness - and constantly chartging form of the antennae, " the wellrounded, plump body, 'the eyes set like small diamonds on the side of the head, the delicate feet, and, above all, the rich colouring and velvety texture of tbe skin all combine to give those animals an aspect of quite exceptional beauty." He wide that, of all the specimens he has

seen alive, the most beautiful are the dark green specimens of the species called capensis, found in South Africa. As far as the colour of the skin is concerned, he says, these animals are not surpassed in the animal kingdom. For a long time there was a rather heated controversy amongst several scientists as to whether the female peripatus brings forth its young alive or lays eo-gs, which are subsequently hatched. Piofosor bedgwick held a very decided opinion that all species of the family are viviparous, but Dr Dendy, who was Professor of biology at Canterbury College, for some years, and who took the peripatus in liand with characteristic enthusiasm, repeatedly a«=erted that some of the sjxwies laid eggs. His own observation enabled him to prove this. In his vivarium in Melbourne, where he kept eoroe specimens of the ajuma!. several eggs were laid, and one of these, after an extraordinarily loner term of aevc'opny.™, hatched out. ' It i" now beuc««l tl Jr .t trs peripatus is divided into two grotsp*, one brine viviparous and the otaer oviparous. As for ac is known -\ew Zealand nn/> two specks iq the former group and on* hi the latter. It is a vivipf,^,., .=t,^;-.= f],Pt 3fv Ball has observed. It is fceheved that the egriayins £ fc . ! V v^ v .• in^" t - bating back at least o> the v-retaceous epoch.