200 BRITISH SPECIES OP FALSE-SCORPIONS. 



scorpion, but difters in that very material one ; and hence it has 

 obtained the popular name of false-scorpion. 



The mode of life of this group is a very obscure one, 

 being passed under stones and dead bark of trees, among 

 moss, dead leaves, or other rubbish, and in old buildings, 

 one species often inhabiting old libraries. Thus they are 

 seldom seen unless specially searched for. Their colouring is 

 plain, chiefly yellow-brown, brown, and red-brown, and generally 

 without any special pattern or markings. Entomologists, par- 

 ticularly those who work at the Coleoptera (or beetles), must often 

 see them while searching for the Geodephaga (or ground-loving 

 beetles) ; but, I am sorry to say, they do not as a rule 

 often note or collect them. One or two of the false-scorpions 

 (and possibly others) have a curious habit, which may, per- 

 haps, have brought them to the notice of even comparatively 

 uninterested observers. I allude to their seizing on the leg 

 of a fly with their forcipated palpi, and being thus carried 

 about by the fly from place to place. This is a quasi-parasitic 

 habit ; but, excepting as a means of transport and dispersion, 

 it does not appear to be of any special advantage to the passen- 

 ger, nor, excepting as an incubus, does it seem to injure the 

 fly. From what has just been said it will be gathered that the 

 false- scorpions are all of small size. Those I have exhibited show 

 the largest and smallest as yet found in Britain. Some of the 

 exotic species are larger, but none are of large size. Like the 

 " Harvest Men," it is considered now that the false-scorpions form 

 a separate order of the Arachnida. They agree with other 

 Arachnids in possessing eight legs and two palpi, as well as in the 

 union of the caput and thorax, forming what is termed the u Cephalo- 

 thorax." They agree also in having the whole-body divided into 

 two main portions, the cephalothorax and abdomen, with the 

 eyes (when present) on the former ; but they differ from all the 

 other groups, either in the number and position of the eyes, or in 

 the form of the palpi, the segmentation of the abdomen, or in the 

 nature and position of the breathing organs. These and other 



