5O2 PYCNOGONIDA CHAP. 



tubular proboscis, at the apex of which is the mouth, suctorial, 

 devoid of jaws ; the body terminates in a narrow, limbless, 

 unsegmented process, the so-called " abdomen," at the end of 

 which is the anal orifice. The body-ring to which is attached 

 the first pair of legs, bears a tubercle carrying four eye-spots ; 

 and below, it carries, in the male sex, a pair of small limbs, 

 whose function is to grasp and hold the eggs, of which the 

 male animal assumes the burden, carrying them beneath his 

 body in a flattened coherent mass. In either sex a pair of 

 sexual apertures open on the second joints of the last pair 

 of legs. The integument of body and limbs is very strongly 

 chitinised, brown in colour, and raised into strong bosses or 

 tubercles along the middle line of the back, over the lateral 

 processes, and from joint to joint of the limbs. The whole 

 animal has a singular likeness to the Whale -louse, Cyctmus 

 mysticeti (well described by Fr. Martins in 1675), that clings to 

 the skin of the Greenland Whale as does Pycnogonum to the 

 Anemone, a resemblance close enough to mislead some of the 

 older naturalists, and so close that Linnaeus, though in no way 

 misled thereby, named it Phalangium balaenarum. The sub- 

 stance of the above account, and the perplexity attending the 

 classification of the animal, are all included in Linnaeus's short 

 description : l " Simillimus Onisco Ceti, sed pedes omnes pluribus 

 articulis, omues perfecti, nee plures quam octo. Dorsum rubrum, 

 pluribus segmentis ; singulis tribus mucronibus. Cauda cylin- 

 drica, brevissima, truncata. Rostrum membranaceum, sub- 

 subulatum, longitudine pedum. Genus dubium, facie Onisci 

 ceti ; rostro a reliquis diversum. Cum solo rostro absque 

 maxillis sit forte aptius Acaris aut proprio generi subjiciendum. 

 . . . Habitat in mari norvegico sub lapidibus."' 



1 Sysf. Nat. ed. xii. 1767, vol. ii. p. 1027. 



2 Briinm'ch's description (" Entomologia," 1764), is still more accurate, and is 



worthy of transcription as an excellent example of early work. 

 "Fig- iv. Novum genus, a R[ev.] D[om.] Strom inter phalangiis 

 relatum, Sondm. Tom. i. p. 209, t. 1, f. 17. Exemplar liujus 

 insecti, quod munificentia R. Autoris possideo, ita describe ; 

 Caput cum thorace unitum, tubo b excavate cylindrico, antice 

 angustiore, postice in thoracem recepto, prominens ; Oculi iv. 

 dorsales, a, in gibbositate tlioracis positi ; c, Antennae 2 tubo 

 breviores moniliformes, subtus in segmento tlioracis, cui oculi 

 insident, radicatae ; segmenta corporis, excepto tubo, iv., cum 

 tuberculo e medio singuli segment! prominulo. Pedes viii., singuli ex articulis vii. 



