108 Annuls of the South African ^ 



individual. While sucking its prey, the Gari/jiit* used its chelicerae to 

 hold it, having the finger with the galea on the under side of the 

 prey ; but when changing the position of the prey it used its large 

 nippers, removing the prey from its chelicerae, turning it about and 

 then pressing it again as far as possible into both chelicerae, and 

 then removing its large nippers from the prey. In walking, the 

 cannibal Gari/juis carried its prey in its chelicerae. Once I lost sight 

 of the feeding Garypus, and found it prowling on the platform of the 

 microscope ; on touching it, I caused it to drop its prey from its 

 cheliceras, but, on replacing it in the observation tray and putting 

 the dried-up prey beside it, I soon saw it fearlessly pick up the 

 shrivelled prey again. It picked it up with its left pedipalp and held 

 it at arm's length while it cleaned the fingers of its right pedipalp in 

 its serrula. It then transferred the prey to its chelicerae and 

 marched off again with it, keeping its pedipalps stretched out in 

 fronton either side and the nippers expanded vertically as it walked. 

 How slow the process of sucking the juices of the prey was may 

 be judged from the fact that my observations extended over four 

 hours, and that even then the Gary pus had not finished its meal." 



27. GARYPUS MINUTUS Tullgren. 



Tullgren has (loc. cit.) described a species, Garypus minutits, on, 

 as he says, a female " wahrscheinlich nicht geschlechtsreif," and of 

 very small size, 1'38 mm. I suppose, however, that he has had 

 before him not a young female, as he states, but a young male, the 

 galea being recorded to be pointed and simple. This species is very 

 well characterised and easily distinguishable by the shape of the 

 hand of the palps; this has a form somewhat like a rectangle, with 

 the inner and outer sides rather straight. In the collection under 

 consideration there are some specimens having the hand of this 

 shape and also as regards the other characters agreeing well with 

 Tullgren's description, but these specimens are very young and form 

 the transition to more adult stages which have some characters 

 lacking in the younger stages, and, therefore, not mentioned in 

 Tullgren's description. Be it at once understood that the hand may 

 vary very much, not only according to the stage of development, that 

 is to the size, but also in the same stage. 



One of the characters alluded to above consists in the hand, 

 especially in more adult specimens, at the extremity (thus at the 

 base of the fingers) being contracted, often nearly perpendicularly to 

 the fingers, more or less strongly, either on both sides, interiorly 

 and exteriorly, or only on the inner side (this contraction in the 



