213 
the middle of the segments, on the dorsal side of the 
abdomen, on the cephalothoracic shield and on all the 
limbs; and the existence of »spaltformigen Hautporen« 
has been mentioned by Bertkau several years before in 
a small treatise about Obisium itself and 
mentioned in »Jahresberichte«. Thus the little 
observation of some fissures is reduced to be of much 
less morphological interest, because that a few of the 
numerous fissures of the lyriform organs just appear at 
the lateral margin of the sternites is not of as great an 
importance, as the calling attention to 7 new pairs of 
»stigmata«. — But the whole proud edifice of theories about 
these »stigmata« and about Scorpio tumbles down hope- 
lesslv, at the same time as disappears the possibility of 
proving that these fissures »evidently homologous with 
stigmata« should be »the openings of the spinning-glands«. 
— Bernard needs not trouble himself with the further 
investigations he announces; it is, moreover, quite inconcei- 
vable to me, how threads could be spun through these rather 
long fissures; to spin tapes would no doubt better agree 
with their shape! 4) Finally may be remarked that what he 
is calling >a very distinct aperture« at the apex of the 
movable finger in Obisium does not at all exist; as to the 
true structure of this place I refer to my communications 
below, though they are but fragmentary. 
I find grounds to add that the remainder of Bernard’s 
treatise is about of the same value as the here criticised 
piece (compare herewith his above mentioned inter- 
pretation in the other, earlier quoted treatise of the 
protrusible organ at the apex of the palpi in Solifugce 
as »probably olfactory«). I should not so long have 
dwelt on a publication such as this, in which the authors 
examinations of nature, his knowledge of the forms of 
animals and of the literature is just as miserahle, as 
is unlimited his audacity in setting forth new, wild 
