THE FALSE-SCORPIONS OF SCOTLAND 91 



this group in Britain, and has besides, on two different 

 occasions, read through and carefully criticised and corrected 

 my manuscript. Whatever claim, therefore, this little work 

 may have to the attention of other naturalists is due in no 

 small measure to the help and guidance I have received 

 from him. 



My thanks are also due to Mr. Wm. Evans, Rev. O. 

 Pickard- Cambridge, Mons. E. Simon, and Mons. Edv. 

 Ellingsen for help received in the identification of speci- 

 mens ; and to Rev. James Waterston and Messrs. G. B. 

 Barbour, H. D. Simpson, A. Urquhart, G. A. Whyte, and 

 R. B. Whyte for valuable aid in working out the Scottish 

 distribution. 



The present work cannot claim to be more than an 

 introduction to the study of False-scorpions, but it should 

 prove a stimulus to the further study of this interesting 

 group. 



Introduction. 



False-scorpions belong to the great class Arachnida, 

 which includes, besides the False-scorpions, the true Scorpions, 

 the Spiders, the Harvestmen, the Mites, etc. They receive 

 their popular name from their external resemblance to true 

 Scorpions, but they are distinguished at a glance from true 

 Scorpions by the absence of any sting-bearing, tail-like 

 elongation of the hind-body. They are rather small 

 animals, measuring from one to four millimetres in length, 

 and have flask-shaped bodies with six pairs of appendages. 



External Features. 



In their bodies are recognisable two main parts, long 

 known as the cephalothorax and the abdomen, but now 

 more simply termed the fore-body and the Jiind-body re- 

 spectively. The. fore-body is covered on the dorsal aspect 

 with a rigid chitinous plate of one piece, the carapace, which 

 varies in shape, in colour, and in surface texture in different 

 species. In some genera the side-margins of the carapace 

 form straight lines, but these may assume any one of the 

 three possible relationships to one another — converging 

 forward, parallel, or diverging forward ; where the side- 



