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Strictly speaking, the body is composed of a 

 cephalothorax and three thoracic segments. The 

 cephalothorax, or forward end, viewed from above, 

 bears a cone-like suctorial proboscis, four simple 

 eyes on the top, and the first pair of walking legs. 

 The remaining three segments each bears a pair 

 of walking legs, also; but the third, or last, seg- 

 ment, in addition to the legs, carries at its end a 

 little stump, an aborted belly, a rudimentary ab- 

 domen which is a nonentity literally and physio- 

 logically. The legs consist of nine stout articulated 

 segments bearing at the terminal tip a sharp hook. 

 Each of the four divisions of the body is sur- 

 mounted by a tiny tubercle ; it is on the tubercle of 

 the head-region that the eyes are placed. 



Turning the pycnogonid over on its back, I find 

 another pair of legs under the cephalothorax, 

 diminutive in size, but like the larger walking 

 legs in all essential respects. Small as they are, I 

 realize that this is only a comparative distinction 

 when the sexes are considered, and did I not know 

 from the fact of its attending young, merely the 

 evident largeness of these lesser appendages 

 would tell me at once that my creature is a male. 



Let me explain. The female differs but little 



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