PYCNOGONIDA. 31 



is shown by the series of larval forms, given in the following figures 8 n, and 16 17 of Pseudo- 

 pallene spinipes and circularis, as well as of Pallene brevirostris; as they, however, belong to the se- 

 cond larval stage, they will be mentioned more in detail in a following section. It may be possible, 

 of course, that I can have overlooked rudimentary larval legs; but in a somewhat later stage of the 

 same species I have seen no trace of these legs either, and as, in all places where I have observed 

 them, they have only appeared as one or two pairs of short, inarticulate processes, I am inclined to 

 suppose that here they have been quite absent. Of still less importance is the peculiarity that the 

 foremost pair of ambulatory legs have begun to appear so early, before the chelifori were quite 

 developed, and before the byssus-gland was formed. The two genera mentioned here must be supposed 

 to pass a great part of the second larval stage in the egg-shell. 



Morgan, Contrib. Embryol. 1891 has not in Pallene empusa seen any trace of the foremost pair 

 of the embryonal legs, though he has seen some trace of the second pair; at all events I understand 

 the following quotation in that way, I.e. p. 14. On the sides of the body, just in front of the first 

 pair of ambulatory legs, are a pair of projections, one on each side. These are the beginning of the 

 third pair of limbs -- the ovigerous legs. I have seen no traces of the second pair of appendages in 

 the ontogeny of Pallene*. 



In the basal part of the chelifori is most frequently found a large gland, the 

 byssus-gland, with an excretory duct opening through a shorter or longer hollow 

 thorn in the fore- margin of the said basal part. 



The occurrence of a large gland in the chelifori has already been mentioned by Dohrn and 

 Hoek, who have also given descriptions and figures of it; by Morgan it is only drawn in the che- 

 lifori of Tatty stylum orbiculatum; cp. the following. 



This gland, the byssus gland, is most frequently distinctly conspicuous, and through the 

 epidermis it is seen to consist of a circle of large glandular cells gathered round a hollow, or reser- 

 voir, from which an excretory duct is seen to lead to the inner fore-end of the basal part of the 

 cheliforus, comp. the enlarged figure of the fore-end of the larva of Nymphon grossipes, pi. I, fig. 22. 

 In Nymphon elegans, pi. II, fig. 16, I have found the gland to be almost as distinct and of the same 

 structure; while it was far less distinct in Nymphon longitarse, pi. II, fig. 19 20, Nymphon robustum, 

 pi. II, fig. 6, Nymphon macronyx, pi. II, fig. n, and in Nymphon spinosum, pi. II, fig. 13; but possibly it 

 was not quite developed, and so was not so well preserved in the spirit The excretory duct opens 

 into the basal end of a shorter or longer hollow thorn, through the point of which the gland-secretion 

 is produced as a very thin thread of a considerable length. The thread, which stains strongly (I have 

 in all instances used picro-carmine), is easily seen, and is also to be seen in my figures of the larvse. 

 The development of the gland begins very early in the embryonic stage on the border of the basal 

 end of the cheliforus and the corresponding metamere, but it is not finished until later in the first 

 larval stage, when the larva has left the egg wholly, or, at all events, with the fore part. The length 

 of the excretory thorn varies very much; generally it is short or even very short, but it can, as in 

 Pycnogonum littoralc, gain a very considerable length, about the length of the embryonal legs, cp. pi. I, 

 fig. 3, where, however, the limit between the thorn and the free thread, which limit is difficult to see, 

 has not been indicated. The genera, in which I have found a distinct gland with a thread arising 



