Earlier Criticisms of Stecker's Treatises 69 



Sorensen remarks : " Qusp, si ill. Thoroll dixisset, suis se oculis vidisse, tacuissem. Sed nee 

 Thorell, nee ego hoc animalculuni vidimus. Itaque dico, ill. Tlioreil errare, non videnteiii, 

 Gibbocellum a doctissimo Stecker descriptum, monstrum esse." And further: "sed de anatomia 

 tota Gibbocelli dubitandum est, quod descriptio anatomise tota et omnia quae dicit [Stecker] 

 Gibbocellum cum animalibus aliis comparans, fantasiam demonstrat, sed neque facultatem 

 e.xplorandi neque subtilitatem disputandi." Sorensen supported his opinion of Stecker's treatises 

 by a whole series of objections of which we shall here repeat only this, that the diagnosis' 

 which Stecker had proposed («, p. 241) for his new order contained only one character, which 

 according to Stecker's own statements constituted a difference between it and Opiliones, 

 viz. that in the new order all the legs were furnished with one claw, whilst according to 

 Stecker's notions his " Phalangiidse," i.e. Opiliones, had one claw only on the legs of the first 

 two pairs, but two claws on those of the last two pairs. To this Sorensen remarked : 

 " Tamen Opilionibus Palpatoribus (velut Opilionibus omnibus BoheraiEe) singuli pedes gressorii 

 unguibus singulis instructi sunt ; et Laniatoribus tantum, quos doctissimus Stecker ceterum 

 cognovisse non videtur, pedes gressorii paris tertii et quarti unguiculis binis instructi sunt." 

 For this and other reasons Sorensen was unable to follow Thorell in removing Gibocellum 

 from Opiliones whilst at the same time he looked upon the various extraordinary statements 

 of Stecker concerning the anatomical structure of Gibocellum as due to a lack of capability 

 for anatomical research in the author. 



Four years later Croneberg expressed himself in his treatise on the interior structure of 

 Chelonethi (pp. 458, 459) in words which may be translated as follows : " Though I likewise 

 look upon Sironoidffi as belonging to Opilionidse, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that Thorell 

 was fully justified in excluding the genus Gibbocellum not only from this family, but from the 

 order of Opilionids altogether, and placing it amongst Pseudoscor|:)ions. Sorensen's objection 

 to Thorell's view, viz. that Stecker had erroneously described the maxillary lobe of the first 

 pair of legs, as maxilla^, appears to be unfounded to judge from the figure in question, although 

 I myself have directed attention to the improbability of the representation of the opening of 

 the mouth." But Croneberg had not read Sorensen's paper itself — and without that it is 

 impossible to criticise what an author means — for if he had read it he could scarcely 

 have continued as follows : " But Gibbocellum is also the only one amongst the divergent 

 Arachnida lately described, which really seems to approach to the Pseudoscorpions...." It is 

 precisely from Croneberg's own investigation of the internal anatomy of Chelonethi that it 

 appears most clearly that there is not the least agreement as regards the inner organs between 

 Chelonethi and Gibocellum, apart from their having two pairs of spiracles, no more in fact than 

 there is in respect of the external structure. It is to be noted that Croneberg had full 

 confidence in Stecker's statements, except as regards the position of the oral orifice in Gibo- 

 cellum behind the mandibles (maxillse auctorum) which, however, is not so very ditferent from 

 what is seen in Opiliones. 



Thorell, on the contrary, did not consider Sorensen's objections devoid of weight ; four 

 years afterwards he wrote (/(, p. 8, note): "...it is quite possible that that author's [Stecker's] 

 statements are erroneous: conf. Siireusen, /oc. cit. Before we get a trustiuorthy description of 



1 The entire diagnosis was as follows : " Corpus oblongo- siniplici unguiculo termiuati. Oculi in gibbis conicis, ex 



ovatum ; cephalothorax cum abdomine coalitus, non divisus, utroque thoracis latere promiiientibus positi. Kespiratio 



abdomen aimulis octo composittim. Antenme ehelata; tribus trachealis." The three characters which we have printed in 



articulis compositte. Palpi duo filiformes, apice unguiculo italic in this diagnosis would exclude Gibocellum from 



uno armati. Pedes octo antrorsum vel retrorsum gressorii, Chelonethi, but not from Opiliones. 



