A New British Pantopod, 301 



about halfway between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia. 

 This species also has six-jointed palps. It is considerably 

 larger than the other Ta?iystyla, and possesses a swollen pro- 

 boscis and long tail-segment. Recently, Prof. Schimkewitsch 

 has described' (in addition to T. Hoekia7ium of unknown 

 habitat) three new Ta^iystyla from the coasts of South America, 

 collected by the Italian corvette " Vettor Pisani" on her explor- 

 ing cruise. These are T. Dohrnii (with six-jointed palps) from 

 Abrolhos islands off the coast of Brazil, T. calicirostre (with 

 six-jointed palps and strange cup-shaped proboscis) from the 

 Chonas islands off the coast of Chili, and T, Cherchice (with 

 seven-jointed palps) from the Bay of Panama. I should be very 

 much inclined to refer also to Tanystyhim the genus Disco- 

 a^'achne, Hoek, with its single species D. brevipes described in 

 the " Challenger" Report^ from the shore near Capetown. In 

 this pycnogon the palps are five-jointed and the chelifori are 

 altogether wanting. When one considers how nearly these 

 latter have disappeared in T. conirostre, it seems unnecessary 

 to retain another genus for an allied form in which they have 

 altogether vanished. 



The geographical distribution of the foreign relations of our 

 new British pantopod raises some questions of much interest. 

 None are deep-water species, so it is probable that migration 

 has taken place along coast-lines. We see that this Mediter- 

 ranean and Irish species and the Capetown species {Disco- 

 arachne, Hoek) are the most modified forms in the genus, 

 showing the furthest amount of reduction in the first two pairs 

 of limbs. When'we consider that the majority of the species 

 are from the southern hemisphere, and (with the exception of 

 Discoarachne) that these are not so far modified as the Euro- 

 pean form, we are to conclude that the original home of the 

 group was far to the south. This view is confirmed by the 

 fact that two species occur on both the Atlantic and Pacific 

 coasts of the American continent, while no species have been 

 found on the Pacific coast of Asia, such a distribution sug- 

 gesting the neighbourhood of Cape Horn as the starting-point 



' W. Schimkewitsh. " Sur les Pantopodes recueilles par M. le lieut. G. 

 Chiercliia pendant la Voyage de la Corvette ' Vettor Pisani ' en 1882-5." 

 Atti delta R. Accad. dei Lincei {Me?noire d. Classe di Scienze fisiche^ &*(.), Vol. vi., 

 1890, pp. 329-347, and plate. 



* P. P. C. Hoek, t.c, pp. 74 6, pi. vii. fig. 8-12. 



