398 Mr. R. H. Meade on the British species 0/ Phalangiidse. 



runs off. The legs show great nervous irritability, for when any 

 of them are detached, they preserve an independent power of 

 motion for some time. Geoffroy thought that these animals 

 possessed the same power as the Spiders and Crustacea, of repro- 

 ducing lost limbs ; for he once met with an individual that had 

 one leg much shorter than the others. No decisive experiments 

 have been made on this subject, and Latreille thinks it very un- 

 likely that they should have this faculty ; for they are much 

 shorter-lived than either Spiders or the higher Crustaceans, 

 their term of existence being limited to the summer and autumn 

 months. The female, whose abdomen in the autumn will be 

 found filled with round white eggs, deposits these beneath stones, 

 or in crevices of walls and in other secure places, and then dies ; 

 these eggs are hatched in the following spring or summer, when 

 minute individuals, very similar in form and shape to the adult 

 animals, may be found beneath stones or at the roots of grass. 

 These increase in size during the summer, but do not arrive at 

 maturity until the autumn, when the sexes pair; and as soon as 

 cold weather sets in they all quickly disappear. No observations 

 have been made as to whether the Harvest-men cast their integu- 

 ment and undergo periodical moultings, as in the true Spiders; 

 and I have found it difficult to keep them alive in captivity so as 

 to make experiments on this and other points in their oeconomy. 

 They are usually nocturnal in their habits, generally remaining 

 concealed (or at rest on walls) during the day, and feed upon 

 insects and other small animals. I captured however an adult 

 female of Phalangium urnigerum in August 1854, while running 

 across a path in a wood in the daytime with a fly [Anthomyia) in 

 its falces as large as the common house-fly, which it was very 

 unwilling to relinquish. Latreille says that they are very vora- 

 cious and will destroy one another. 



The Harvest-men are frequently infested by a bright red 

 parasitic mite, which may very often be seen attached to their 

 bodies or legs; it is named the Trombidium phalangii^. This 

 mite is only parasitic during its immature or larva state, when 

 it is hexapod, of an oval shape, and has the head terminating in 

 a projecting conical beak or sucker, by which it adheres to the 

 skin of the Phalangium. Duges has observed that they are 

 ultimately detached from the Harvest-men, and secrete them- 

 selves in minute crevices in the earth, where they remain for 

 the space of twenty days in the form of a smooth oval chrysalis 

 lil^e a small yellow e^^y out of which there emerges the perfect 

 mite, which has eight legs, is of an obtuse triangular shape, 



* See Walck. Hist. Nat. des Ins. Apt. torn. iii. p. 180 ; and Latreille's 

 Genera, torn. i. p. 161, where it is called Jjeptus phalaiigii. 



