Species of Thelyphonus. 115 



I must now briefly refer to a few remarks which occur in 

 Dr. Stoliczka's paper. He says, in the first place, speaking of 

 the sections into which I have grouped the genus, " Turning 

 now to the sections distinguished by Mr. Butler, there are 

 some discrepancies to be noticed in the species referred to them 

 by the author." He then proceeds to point out, amongst other 

 unimportant details, that Koch has not accurately figured the 

 cheliceres of T. brasilianus and T. ling anus 1 provided that I 

 have referred them to their proper sections. This I am at once 

 willing to admit ; but Koch's figures are exceedingly rude, and 

 Dr. Stoliczka himself is evidently aware that that author laid 

 no stress on the number of "denticles," as appears in his note 

 on T. brasilianus, where he says : — "Their number, it is true, 

 is not mentioned in the description ; but if Koch's figure has 

 been found to be incorrect, the correction should have been 

 noticed;" and in his note on T. linganus, " Koch's original 

 figure gives six denticles on the second joint of the cheliceres, 

 but does not refer to that number in the text. Is the figure 

 incorrect in that respect?" 



It is certainly remarkable, considering how little dependence 

 can be placed on Koch's figures of Thelyphonus, that any one 

 can feel certain that " Koch's T. rufipes is clearly not the same 

 species as the one originally described by Lucas under the 

 same name; " and, considering the admission that, as regards 

 two other species figured by him, " the differences which he 

 notices as distinguishing the two are decidedly of no specific 

 value," it is, I think, odd that Dr. Stoliczka should assume to 

 believe that the " denticles " on the cheliceres were counted 

 when Koch figured his species, though neglected when he 

 described them. He says, however : — "If those descriptions 

 and figures were found to be incorrect or not reliable, the 

 mistakes had first to be pointed out and corrected before a 

 determination, based upon them, was admitted or rejected." 

 To this I reply that I consider the descriptions reliable, and 

 the figures give a vague notion of the general outline, whilst 

 the localities given assist still more in the determination of the 

 species. I did not consider it necessary to state in full my 

 reasons for every little change which I made ; for I consider 

 brevity as much the soul of science as it is the soul of wit. 



As regards Guerin's T. caudatus, a figure is given, and by 

 no means so careful a one as to enable any body with certainty 

 to determine the species : the locality " Antilles " is therefore 

 the only clue to the species ; it is not the locality of T. caudatus, 

 which, as Dr. Stoliczka remarks, is stated to be Java. Nothing, 

 therefore, could be more reasonable than to refer it to T. an- 

 tillanus. 



8* 



