146 



KNOWLEDGE, 



[Jolt, 1908. 



accidental slitting of the abdomen ; but neither figure nor 

 description shows for certain which is the head and which 

 the tail of this problematical animal. Its names only once 

 reapjiear when Tjeach, in the year 181G, in the fifth 

 edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" by a slip 

 of memory attributed them to Montagu in place of the 

 species which that excellent observer really established. 

 Phalanrjium npinosuut, Montagu, found in South Deron 

 ("Trans. Liuu. Soc." Vol. IX., 1808), still retains its earliest 

 specific name. It was, however, very early confounded by 

 Leach with the Greenland species Pycnogonum spinipes, 

 O. Fabricius, and consequently transferred to Latreille's 

 genus Pho.richilus. Hence arose a long-standing confusion, 

 authors apparently supposing that the genus was based on 

 the species from Devonshire, and not knowing that Latreille 

 instituted it in 1804, before Montagu's species had lieen 

 heard of.* In a later work (1810) it is curious to read 

 the French professor's confession that he had even then 

 only seen a single pycuogonid. This contrasts not only 

 with modern testimony to the commonness of Sea-spindles 

 but 'ndth a remark made by Leach as early as 1814, for at 

 that date, when discussing Latreille's genus before the 

 Linuean Society, he says of it, " I possess many indigenous 

 species, but have not yet worked out their characters." 

 Had he ever accomplished this working out, he would 

 probably have found that he had been mistaken as to the 

 generic afiinities in at least some of his specimens. 



A second species from the coast of Devon was described 

 and figured by Montagu as Phalangium andealum. This 

 was transferred by Leach to the genus Nymphon. It is 

 misquoted by Costa in 1838 as Phalangium oculatum. 

 Though it has otherwise dropped out of recent synonymy, 

 it is probably identical with the earlier Phoxichilidium 

 femoratum (.1. Eathke), 1799. J. Rathke is not to be 

 confused with the later and, at jjreseut, better-known H. 

 Rathke. In designating his species as conspicuous for its 

 femora or thighs, he unconsciously records his ignorance 

 of the fact that this dilatation of the fourth or femoral 

 limb-joint is a feminine attribute common to nearly all the 

 tribe. It is safe to infer that he had a female specimen 

 in view, while that which Montagu describes as having 

 ovigerous legs, and which he figures with the thighs 

 undilated, was cleai-ly a male. 



The next development of the subject by an English 

 author is due to Leach, who, in 1814 (" Zoological 

 Miscellany," Vol. I., p. 33), founded the genus Ammothea 

 for an American species, leaving to subsequent observers 

 the discovery of its English companions. In the same 

 volume Leach described and figured his Nymphum gracile, 

 adopting the distorted form of Nymphun. apparently from 

 Lamarck. The species, he says, " inhabits the British 

 seas everywhere ; but as it never attains the size of the 

 Phalangium, misnamed by Linnc grossipes (which is 

 figured by Strom in his history of 'Sondmor,' 208, tab. 2, 

 fig. 16), we are doubtful if it be the same species ; but as 

 the Linnean name is so ridiculously inapplicable, little fault 

 can be found with the more appropriate name for which 

 it has been exchanged" ("Encycl. Brit.," Fifth Edition, 

 Art. Anuulosa, p 433). Still a little fault can be found. 

 Leach, if he thought the English species identical with 

 Strum's, should have adopted Strom's marinum as its 

 name. Probably Linuceus in calling it grossipes thought 

 only of the great length of the limbs, not of thickness, 

 which that word more properly implies. But gracile, as it 

 has turned out, is itself not a good choice, because it attri- 

 butes to a single species the tenuity which is characteristic 

 almost throughout the genus Nymphon. Nevertheless, 



* See Knowledge, Vol. XXV , p. 187. On the same page, 14 lines 

 from the foot the genus Pallene was by inadvertence attributed to 

 Cnodsir instead of Jnhnston. 



N. gracile holds its ground, only not in place of N. marinum 

 but by the side of it. N. grossipes (O. Fabricius) is distinct 

 from both, an Arctic species likely to be rare if found at 

 all in our waters. 



In 1821, the American naturalist, Say, described a new 

 genus and species as Anaphia pallida ("Journ. Acad. 

 Philadelphia," Vol. 2, p. 59), which has this particular 

 interest, that E. B. Wilson, in 1878, admits the possibility 

 of having to cancel his own Auoplodactylns lenius in 

 favour of his fellow-countryman's earlier names. Tlie 

 species itself is described by Verrill and Smith in their 

 treatise on Vineyard Sound (1874), as a singular long- 

 legged pycnogonid, clinging to and creeping over the 

 hydroids and aseidians on shore and in shallow water, and 

 most frequently deep purple in colour, though grey and 

 brown specimens are also often met with. They borrow 

 for it from yet another American author the name 

 Phoxichilidium maxillare, Stimpson, 1853, but Stimpson's 

 species is now accepted as itself a synonym of the still 

 earlier Ph. femoratum (Eathke). Sabine's description of 

 the great arctic Colossendeis proboscidea, in 1821, has been 

 already mentioned. At the same time he discussed two 

 arctic species of Nymphon, which, in a hesitating waj', he 

 identified respectively with the grossipes of 0. Fabricius 

 and the hirtum of J. C. Fabricius. Nymphon is probably 

 a masculine form, but Nymphum is certainly a neuter one, 

 so that Sabine's change of Nymphon hirtum into Nymphum 

 hirsutus can scarcely be commended. None of his three 

 species have been found in British watei's, at least according 

 to records that are above suspicion. The next English 

 writer who contributed to enlarge knowledge, not only of 

 the subject in general, but of its relation to our own 

 fauna, was Dr. George Johnston. To him is due the genus 

 Pallene, defined in 1837 for the species P. brevirostris, 

 from the coast of Berwickshire (Miscellanea Zoologica, in 

 Jardine's " Magazine of Zoology and Botany," Vol. I., 

 p. 380). At the same time he established the genus 

 Orithyia, a good genus, but with a pre-occupied name, for 

 which Milne-Edwards, in 1840, substituted Phoxichilidium. 

 The representative species had already been carefully 

 described and figured by ,rohnston, in 1832, as Nymphum 

 coccineum (" Zoological Journal," p. 489, 1828 on title 

 page). Elsewhere he says, " It lives amongst sea- weed in 

 Berwick Bay, and when at rest, with the legs drawn up, it 

 so closely resembles some of the fine coloured confervse, 

 but more especially a detached portion of the Chondria 

 articulata, as to be easily overlooked. It appears to me 

 interesting, in so far as its transparency allows us to 

 examine its circulating system with an accuracy which, 

 perhaps, no dissection could enable us to amend " 

 ("Loudon's Magazine of Natural History," Vol. 6, p. 42, 

 1833). This has proved to be the Ph. femoratum, already 

 noted as occurring in the United States of America, and 

 in South Devon. If Montagu gives his species "colour 

 dusky black," while Johnston describes the body and legs 

 " of an uniform fine transparent red colour," Sars corro- 

 borates both by saying that " the colour is generally a more 

 or less vivid red, in j>articular of specimens from shallow 

 water, and sometimes dark brownish, or a sepia tint." 



The year 1837, in which the American writer Eights 

 described his bright scarlet Decolopoda austrulis* ("Boston 

 Journ. Nat. Hist.," Vol. 1, p. 204), from the south, and 

 Johnston inaugurated his new genera from the north, 

 began a period of great activity in this subject. In 1838, 

 the Italian O. G. Costa among his Neapolitan " Aracnidi," 

 published the pycnogonid genus, Phanodemus, with three 

 species which still await precise identification. To the 



* It ij most probibly this species for <^hich Rafinesque suggested 

 the generic name Decatetoptis, as he infdrnis us in his Autobiography, 

 p. 106, 1836. 



