OF WASHINGTON. 253 



They must have been very young, perhaps only a few days old, 

 as they measured from the front of the cephalothorax to the 

 end of the abdomen 8 mm. 



I prepared a home for them in a glass jar with a wide 

 mouth, filled to a depth of about three inches with moist white 

 sand ; I constructed a little retreat of broken cork chips on the 

 surface and caught a few flies. 



The next morning the pair of Thelyphonus had built small 

 subterraneous passages in the sand and apparently preferred 

 these abodes to the cork retreats. The flies were untouched. 

 About a week later I found one of them dead, whether it had 

 died from starvation or lost its life in a fight with its sister, I 

 cannot say. I changed the food and fortunately selected 

 young Cockroaches, of which the Department Building fur 

 nished ample supply. These were relished by the captive ; 

 water that I introduced into the jar in a minute porcelain dish 

 remained untouched. 



The color of the young was a whitish-pink, the nine dorsal 

 schlerites of the abdomen yellowish olive-brown, the three 

 posterior legs and the carapace a darker brown, but the first 

 pair of legs, the palpi and the trophi, a brownish rose-color. 



The bristled tail was white and a little more fleshy than in 

 the adult state, and densely covered with rose-colored stout 

 bristly hairs, which were about two and one-half times longer 

 than the diameter of the tail itself ; this pubescence was more 

 dense towards the distal extremity, while at the basal part 

 (about the twelve first joints) it was very sparse. The habits 

 were very sluggish indeed, even remarkably so, for a slow 

 moving indolent animal as the full-grown Thelyphonus gigan- 

 teus. When I took it into my hand to examine it to see if it 

 was yet alive and then threw it back upon the moist sand, it 

 remained for days in the same position as it landed, provided 

 a strong light did not strike it ; gradually it moved into its re 

 cess, when the jar was put into the dark closet ; it fed on one, 

 seldom two, roaches per week, and consequently grew very 

 little, and only measured, after a year of captivity and plentiful 

 supply of food, eighteen millimetres from the anterior border 

 of the cephalothorax to the base of the tail ; it had grown 

 only ten millimetres in one year. 



In the night of September, 1891, or about one year after its 

 birth, it molted its skin for the first time ; it had now assumed 

 a very piceous color in all its parts and it seemed to be more 

 lively in its movements. The old coat I found pretty well in 

 tact, lying on the sand ; the upper part of the cephalothorax 

 was removed at its lateral borders all the way around ; it could 

 not be found, and it had in all probability been devoured by 

 the animal itself. I kept it in a dark closet, and its lively 



