Class ijication of Scorpions. 5 



racteristics employed by Peters and others, partly of certain 

 new ones, among which I desire to call special attention to the 

 tooth armature of the palp-Jingers (which often seems to me 

 to offer particularly good and trustworthy marks of distinction), 

 as also to the position, with regard to the upper and underside 

 of the hand, of what 1 call the hand-hack {manus aversa). By 

 hand-back 1 mean that surface of the hand which (in the 

 family Paudinoidge) is turned outwards, and which is bounded 

 by the two strongest costte of the hand. I have retained 

 Peters's division of the lateral eyes into principal and accessory 

 lateral eyes, although it may sometimes be difficult .to say 

 under Avliich of these categories an eye comes. I have also, 

 after him, allowed the presence or absence of " keels " on the 

 tail to serve as a distinctive mark of genera, although I am by 

 no means sure that this characteristic is always entitled to so 

 much credit. Those also of Peters's genera which are to me 

 unknown, I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to accom- 

 modate with places in my scheme (they are here marked with 

 an asterisk), but, I have no doubt, in some instances failed to 

 assign them their proper place. 



Many may probably entertain the opinion that I have broken 

 up the families into too many genera, whereas I am convinced 

 that the number of these groups will hereafter be considerably 

 increased. If there is ever to be an end of the confusion in 

 which our knowledge of the species of scorpions is involved 

 (a confusion which has probably contributed more than any 

 thing else to deter zoologists from the study of this group of 

 animals), the first necessary step will assuredly be its division 

 into numerous and well-distinguished genera. 



That I have corrected the faultily written nsime'&Brotheas and 

 Vcejovis to Broteas and Vejovis (as on a former occasion I cor- 

 rected, for instance, i¥a/-j9/6-5a to Marpessa) ,\v'\\\ probably be dis- 

 approved by no others than those who look upon every letter 

 of a once published name as holy and intangible. I ought to 

 mention that I do not allow myself to make such a correction 

 without its having been first approved by a philologer ex pro- 

 fesso. As regards my views on the subject of zoological nomen- 

 clature in general, I beg to refer to my work ' On European 

 Spiders,' pp. 3-14. 



Scorpions form so compact and uniform a group that it is 

 extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to say with certainty 

 which of them are the highest and which the lowest. Those 

 who consider Spiders as ranking above Scorpions will no 

 doubt assign the highest place to those forms {Ischnurus for 

 instance) in which the tail is least developed, and which thus. 



