_Peripatus_, though a lowly organised animal, and of remarkable sluggishness, with but slight development of the higher organs 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 animal of striking beauty. The exquisite sensitiveness and constantly changing form of the antennae, the well-rounded 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 the skin, all combine to give these animals an aspect of quite exceptional beauty. Of all the species which I have seen alive, the most beautiful are the dark green individuals of _Capensis_, and the species which I have called _Balfouri_. These animals, so far as skin is concerned, are not surpassed in the animal kingdom. I shall never forget my astonishment and delight when on bearing away the bark of a rotten tree-stump in the forest on Table Mountain, I first came upon one of these animals in its natural haunts, or when Mr. Trimen showed me in confinement at the South African Museum a fine fat, full-grown female, accompanied by her large family of thirty or more just-born but pretty young, some of which were luxuriously creeping about on the beautiful skin of their mother's back. EXTERNAL FEATURES. The anterior part of the body may be called the head, though it is not sharply marked off from the rest of the body (Fig. 1). {6}[Illustration: FIG. 1.—_Peripatus capensis_, drawn from life. Life size. (After Sedgwick.)] [Illustration: FIG. 2.—Ventral view of hind-end of _P. Novae-Zealandiae_. (After Sedgwick.) _g_, Generative opening; _a_, anus. FIG. 3.—Ventral view of the head of _P. capensis_. (After Sedgwick.) _ant_, Antennae; _or.p_, oral papillae; _F.1_, first leg; _T_, tongue.]