394 Mr. R. H. Meade on the British species q/" Phalangiidae. 



tribe, which is contained in the second and third parts of the 

 work entitled ' Natursystem der ungefiugelten Insekten/ by 

 Lichtenstein and Herbst. Twenty-three species are here de- 

 scribed, and most of them are also figured, but the descriptions 

 and figures are not sufficiently accurate to be of much value. 

 Herbst rejected the name of Phalangium, which he applied to 

 the animals now placed in the genera Phrynus and TelyphonuSy 

 and adopted the title of Opilio in a generic sense, still keeping 

 all the species of this family in one genus. 



Soon after the appearance of the works of Latreille and 

 Herbst, another was written on the same subject by Dr. J. F. 

 Hermann ; it is named ' Memoire Apterologique,^ and was edited 

 by Professor Hammer of Strasburg, where it was published in 

 1804 after the death of the author. It was accompanied by 

 coloured plates which are very imperfect, but the descriptions of 

 some of the species are tolerably good. Hermann retained the 

 name of Phalangium. In his highly classical ^ Genera Crustace- 

 orum et Insectorum,^ Latreille gave much more exact descriptions 

 of some of the more common species of Harvest-men, but he 

 perpetuated the error into which he had fallen, of confounding 

 together the two distinct species Phalangium cornutum, and PA. 

 opilio, of Linnseus, describing them as being only the male and 

 female of the same species. After the appearance of this work 

 in 1806, nothing seems to have been added to our knowledge 

 of the European Phalangiidse until the publication of the works 

 of Walckenaer in France and Koch in Germany. In the third 

 volume of the ' Histoire Naturelle des Insectes Apteres ' (which 

 appeared in 1844) by the former author, the Phalangiidse are 

 described by M. Paul Gervais, who appears to have been satis- 

 fied with copying the descriptions of the French species from 

 Latreille's first work ; and I should think had never examined 

 any of them himself, as he has fallen into all his errors. His 

 synonyms are often very incorrect. 



The works of Koch occupy a very different position to the one 

 just mentioned. The great work, ^Die Arachniden,' by this 

 author (which was commenced by Hahn)> contains many beau- 

 tiful figures of these animals, and full and accurate descriptions 

 of most of the European species. Koch, after the example of 

 Herbst, rejects the name of Phalangium for the Harvest-men. 

 He calls the family Opilionidse, and subdivides it into many new 

 genera ; naming the one which contains the greatest number of 

 species, Opilio. 



Having thus briefly mentioned the principal works which 

 have appeared on this subject, I must say a few words on the 

 external form and structure, as well as the habits and manners, 

 of these singular animals, before I begin the description of the 



