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Tol. III. MAUCH, 1895. ISTo. 1. 



NOTES ON THE PSEUDOSCORPIONIDA. 



i]y Nathan Banks. 



Mr. H. (i. Hubbard has lately sent me a large number of 

 interesting Pseudoscorpions from various parts of the United States. 

 Several new species are contained in the collection, which also 

 affords new localities for many known forms. I hope sometime 

 in the future to make a somewhat elaborate work on this interest- 

 ing group of Arachnida, but I am aware that there are many new 

 forms yet to be discovered in the arid and in the mountainous 

 regions of the west. Therefore I would only give at present a 

 revision of all the forms known to me. 



The Pseudoscorpions form a very strongly circumscribed 

 group. Of the general structure of the scorpions, they differ from 

 them in several ways. They have no post-abdomen ; there is no 

 longitudinal furrow on the cephalothorax, while transverse ones 

 are frequently present ; there is no median pair of eyes ; there are 

 no pectines, which perhaps may find their homologue in the spinning 

 organs ; and there are some minor differences in the mandibles, 

 legs, etc. 



Prof. Luigi Balzan has (in Ann. Soc. Ent. France, 1891) given 

 a new and elaborate ctassification of the Pseudoscorpions based 

 principally on the South American forms. The principal new 

 point introduced by him, is the value he assigns to the serrula of 

 the mandibles. This, I think, he has much over-estimated ; and 

 would put more faith in the sutures of the cephalothorax and in 

 the longitudinal division of the abdominal scutiv. The two main 

 divisions do not differ much in their composition ; but Olpiunt and 

 Atemni/s, which according to Balzan are placed with the Chelifericht, 

 I would place in the Obisiida;. Moreover I have tried to bring 

 the classification into the style of that usually adopted by the best 

 entomologists. 



