NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 295 



the first four abdominal segments appears to be a constant phenomenon 

 in the Arachnida ; in explanation of this it may be observed that 

 these segments appear together and before those that succeed them, 

 and that the pame remark applies to the ganglia that innervate them. 

 The vitelline portions of the egg are also of great interest ; the " vitel- 

 line vesicle " forms a sac on the ventral surface, just as in Fishes, and 

 as in them it owes its existence to the presence of too much yolk ; 

 Barrels believes that attention is now for the first time drawn to the 

 presence of this body in any Invertebrate. The succeeding stages are 

 too briefly indicated for us to bo able to give any shorter account of 

 them ; there are a number of figures in illustration. 



New Genus of the Cheliferidae.— M. E. Simon has found * that 

 many of the forms of this group which came to hand are not indigenous 

 to the French fauna ; the one now to be mentioned was found in a 

 chest containing some Japanese objects, and is eliminated by M. Simon 

 from the " Arachnides de France," of v»'hich he is preparing a mono- 

 graph. The name Lopliochernes (hicarinatus) is given to it ; it has 

 most of the characters of Chelifer, but the second cephalothoracic 

 groove is much deeper than the first ; the first five abdominal segments 

 are strongly carinated at the sides, which is not the case with those 

 that succeed them. The movable portion of the chelae is strongly 

 curved, and only touches the fixed part by its tip when the pincer 

 is closed. 



New Acarina. — Dr. Kramer points out f that the observation of 

 Claparede as to the enormous number of these forms is confirmed by 

 every new series of observations ; these forms are moreover most 

 remarkable, while they never lose the characters common to their 

 family ; the divergencies seen in them cannot be explained as due to 

 different habits of existence, and as yet comparative embryology has 

 been able to throw but little light on the question. The true natu- 

 ralist must, therefore, content himself for the present by bringing 

 together the material which shall aid later observers in giving a more 

 general review of the group. With this object in view he pro- 

 ceeds to deal with some new forms ; two new genera, Labidostoma 

 and Gustavia, and six species of already known genera are described. 



Crganization of Myriapoda. — The Myriapoda collected in Tur- 

 kestan by Fedtschenko have been examined by N. Sograff of Moscow, 

 who gives in the ' Zoologischer Anzeiger ' a preliminary account of 

 the chief results he has obtained. | 



1. On the under side of the head of Chilopoda occur a quantity 

 of chitinous plates, which are not of a segmental nature, but are mere 

 cuticular thickenings (sclerites) serving for the attachment of muscles. 



2. The alimentary canal is lined with very peculiar epithelial 

 cells of two kinds ; the first are long and fine, and bear more resem- 

 blance to the olfactory cells of Vertebrates than to the cells usually 

 found in the gut of Arthropods ; the second kind are oval or rounded, 



* 'Bull. Soc. Zool. de France,' iii. (1878) 66. 

 t 'Arch, fiir Naturgeschichte,' xlv. (1879) 1. 

 % ' Zool. Anzeiger,' ii. (1879) 16. 



