120 WHIP-SCORPIONS AND OTHERS 



breast. Blisters resulted from the acid secretion which extended 

 over the whole of his chest. Flower (1901) also had a curious ex- 

 perience with a specimen of Thelyphonus skimkewitchii in Bang- 

 kok. This species is known in Siamese as 'Mengpon-menn' (i.e. 

 stinking scorpion): it is chiefly to be seen during the rainy season 

 and gives oflF a faint and characteristic smell. He wrote: 'Seeing a 

 Thelyphonus of this species running on the ground, I picked it up 

 by the cephalothorax between the first finger and thumb of my 

 left hand; it at once bent its thread-shaped tail over its back (as a 

 scorpion does) and also scratched about my fingers with its legs, 

 but the pincers did not touch me; I thought nothing of its tail, etc. 

 until I felt a sharp pain and found the animal had somehow stung 

 me. I went straight into my house, and already the first joint of my 

 finger was very swollen and inflamed, there being a rapidly grow- 

 ing white lump, and the rest was red; at one spot was a fresh 

 puncture as if a needle had been driven in, in a horizontal direction, 

 and gone some little way under the skin. After cutting and squeez- 

 ing the wound, I put my finger into a strong solution of perman- 

 ganate of potash, which at once relieved the pain and stopped the 

 swelling, but the little wound continued to smart for some hours. 

 Since then I have been careful never to let a Thelyphonus touch 

 me.' 



Graveley (1915) however could hardly believe that this sting 

 was really due to the T. skimkewitchii as he had frequently handled 

 other species without receiving any harm and it is probable that 

 the animal was blamed unfairly. 



Mating habits and life cycle 



The external appearance of the sexes is almost identical and they 

 can often be distinguished only by means of small diflFerences in 

 the structure of the genital sternites. The courtship of Thelyphonus 

 sepiaris has been described by Gravely (1915). It consists of a 

 curious sexual parade reminiscent of that of the scorpions. The 

 male grips the antenniform first legs of the female in his pedipalps 

 and holds their extremities in his chelicerae. He then walks back- 

 wards, the female following. Before long she raises her abdomen 

 in the air and the male commences to stroke her genital segment 

 with his elongated front legs. These are usually passed between 



