30 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



lighter in colour ; it leaves the cast skin in the nest and emerges 

 again to resume its free life. 



Adults as well as young hibernate solitarily inside their nests. 

 As early as mid-September and as late as mid- April solitary young 

 may be found inside these hibernating nests ; the adults do not 

 seem to retire so early, but in midwinter and in spring they too are 

 lying up in their nests. In hothouses this species may not find it 

 necessary to hibernate, or at least to remain as long inside the nest; 

 in the Edinburgh Botanic Garden hothouses I have found the 

 creature free on February 28. But in the open it is certainly the 

 rule for the species to hibernate, as no specimens living free have 

 come under my notice in midwinter. In January 1907, at 

 Kippford, Kirkcudbrightshire, Aird and Robert Whyte and I 

 opened many nests containing the hibernating False-scorpions. In 

 January and March 1904, I found three nests occupied in Ayrshire. 

 In April 1906, at Oban, I took three immature individuals out of 

 nests one on April n, and two on April 18 and an adult out of 

 a nest on April 10. And also in the spring of 1905, on the island 

 of Grand Be, in Brittany, I found this species in nests on March 



31 and April 19. 



I admit, however, that I may have passed over free individuals 

 in midwinter, as the nest is much more conspicuous than the 

 creature itself, and often the creature when seen to emerge from 

 the nest is barely distinguishable on the stone. On being released 

 from its hibernating nest, the animal is active enough ; sometimes 

 it emerges slowly but at other times it darts off swiftly backwards. 

 One under observation happened to be touched behind by a large 

 mite, and it promptly turned round to face the cause of disturb- 

 ance ; the same individual, while I watched it, cleaned its nippers 

 in its chelicerae. 



So far I have discovered an autumn brood only in Ch. tetra- 

 chelatus. At Shirvan, Lochgilphead, on Sept. 15, 1904, I detected 

 two very immature specimens moving along a crack in a stone, and 

 I kept a sharp lookout thereafter for the brood nest. At length on 

 the 2oth, I opened a double-lined nest which contained a female 

 and eight young within the inner cocoon, and on the following day 

 I got another similar nest containing also a female and eight young. 

 In 1905, at Kilminning in Fife, the young were abroad by Sept. 7. 

 The young are white or colourless, with a faint pink tinge on the 

 nippers. 



Chthonius orthodaetylus (Leach), 1817. 



This rare species, about which nothing seems to be known in 

 Britain beyond the records of its occurrence, has been taken in two 

 localities in the " Forth " area at Morningside, Edinburgh, and at 

 Aberlady, East Lothian by Mr. Wm. Evans. 



