658 



PEDIPALPI. 



anterior pair of legs are very long and slender, being much 

 smaller than the others, while the maxillary palpi are very 

 large ; there are eight simple eyea, and the abdomen is eleven 

 to twelve-jointed, while there are two pairs of 

 stigmata, and they also breathe by lungs. Pliry- 

 nus is at once known by the excessively long, 

 wdiip-like, multiarticulate fore legs, which ap- 

 parently perform the office of antennae ; the 'body 

 is short and broad, and has no appendage to the 

 abdomen. P. reniformis Fabr. is fourteen lines 

 long, and is found in Brazil. P. asj^eratijyes AVood 

 occurs in Lower California. No species occur 

 in the United States. The genus Thelyphonus is known by 

 the ol)long body, ending usually in a slender many-jointed 

 filament. T. caudatus Fabr. is fifteen lines long, and inhabits 

 Java. T. giganteus Lucas occurs in the South-western States 

 and in Mexico. Its bite is poisonous. 



Chernetid.e Menge. (Pseudo-scorpiones Latreille.) The 

 False-scorpions are at once known by their large maxillary 

 palpi like the scorpion's claw. The abdomen is eleven-jointed, 

 flattened, without any appendage, and 

 the living forms are minute ; they 

 breathe by tracheae. The}^ are found 

 running about dusty books and in dark 

 places and feed on mites and Psoci. 

 They are often found attached to the 

 leg of some fly or other insect by which 

 they are transported about. "The fe- 

 male chelifer bears the eggs, seventeen 

 in number, in a little bunch under her 

 Fig. 636. abdomen near the opening of her sex- 



ual organs. Menge has observed the Pseudo-scorpions cast 

 their skin in a light web made for that purpose. The little 

 animal remained five days in the web after its metamorphosis, 

 and did not assume its dark colors for four weeks. Three 

 months after it returned to the same web for hibernation. 

 Menge describes eight species from the Prussian Amber, be- 

 longing to genera still living, and Corda one (Microlabris 



