564 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.55. 



little at the extreme anterior end. The whole gland is also concave 

 inwardly, the two assuming the form of parenthesis marks. The 

 glandular portion does not show segmentation in any genus, but in 

 preservatives the cement substance through the center of the gland 

 usually breaks up into thin disk-like laminae, arranged like a row 

 of coins. The duct is short and filose and enters the oviduct just 

 inside the vulva. The external egg sacks are long and straight, usu- 

 ally uniform in diameter, or only slightly narrowed posteriorly and 

 bluntly rounded at the end. The eggs are packed into them rather 

 loosely and without any definite arrangement in rows. 



And of course the developing larvae are not arranged in any 

 definite relation to the outer w^alls of the sack. The eggs are very 

 numerous in all the genera but especially so in Rehelula^ where the 

 number often reaches into the thousands. Nothing is known of the 

 shape or size of the spermatophores since none were present in any 

 of the females thus far examined. 



SYSTEMATIC PART. 



SPHYRIIDAE, new family. 



External family characters of feraale. — Body divided into three 

 distinct regions, a soft cephalothorax, a slender neck, chitinous and 

 armed with processes or horns at its junction with the cephalothorax 

 except in Ojnmia^ and a trunk, flattened dorsoventrally and usually 

 with pits or depressions on its dorsal and ventral surfaces. Abdo- 

 men minute and thoroughly fused with the genital segment in young 

 females, much reduced or practically lacking in the adult, but the 

 anal laminae always present. One pair of posterior processes; egg 

 strings long and cylindrical, eggs multiseriate. 



Two pairs of antennae in young stages, second pair chelate ; a more 

 or less protrusible proboscis ; two pairs of maxillae, second pair un- 

 cinate; one pair of maxillipeds also uncinate. 



Intei'nal family characters of female. — Bodj^ cavity extending into 

 the processes of the cephalothorax and the posterior processes of the 

 abdomen. Digestive tube extending through the center of the body, 

 nearer the dorsal surface in the trunk, without convolutions but pro- 

 fusely covered with processes in Sphyrion and Rehelula. Ovaries 

 paired, situated close to the lateral walls of the trunk; oviducts pro- 

 fusely coiled, coils separated by dorso ventral strands of muscle either 

 universally distributed or gathered in bunches ; cement glands at the 

 posterior corners of the genital segment, usually without joints. 

 Chitinogen layer well developed, especially at the posterior corners 

 of the genital segment, in the cephalothoracic and posterior processes, 

 and in the respiratory cylinders. 



