FALSE SCORPIONS. 237 



mid-day sun. Most species of Solpugidce are extremely active, running with great 

 speed ; but those of Rhax which have enormous mandibles and short thick legs 

 are slow movers, and it is probable that the equally short-legged South African 

 Hexisopus is also relatively sluggish. When on the prowl, these creatures carry 

 the body raised high on the posterior six legs, those of the first pair and the palpi 

 being lifted up and waved in the air to feel the way, while the movements of 

 the head from side to side bear witness to their eagerness to discover prey. 

 Many stories are told of the courage and voracity of these animals. Their food 

 seems to consist mostly of beetles or other insects ; but they will not hesitate 

 to attack such redoubtable adversaries as scorpions. 



THE FALSE SCORPIONS, Order PSEUDOSCORPIONES. 



The false scorpions are all of minute size, the largest not exceeding a quarter 

 of an inch in length. They owe their name to the fact that, as in the true 

 scorpions, the appendages of the second pair are of enormous size as compared w^ith 

 the body, and form pincers ; the mandibles being small, and also pincer-like, while 

 all the legs are of the ordinary locomotor type. There is, moreover, no waist 

 separating the thorax from the abdomen, and the latter is distinctly jointed. All 

 these characters impart a considerable superficial likeness to scorpions, and 

 formerly the two groups were looked upon as closely allied, although there are in 

 reality many important, deep-seated differences between them. The abdomen, for 

 instance, in the Pseudoscorpiones, is practically the same width throughout, none of 

 the posterior segments being narrowed to form a tail, and 

 the last bears no skeletal piece at all comparable to the 

 scorpion's sting. The breathing - organs in the false 

 scorpions are structurally of the same nature as those of 

 the Solifugce, consisting of tracheal tubes, which open by 

 two pairs of stigmata, situated upon the third and fourth 

 abdominal segments. Like the true spiders, the false 

 scorpions possess silk-glands, but these are situated, not in BOOK SCORPlo ^chelifer can- 

 the abdomen, but in the cephalothorax, and open by oroides (much enlarged). 

 minute apertures -at the tip of the movable fingers of the 



mandibles. In addition to these glands, there are others in the abdomen termed 

 cement-glands, which open upon the second and third sternal plates. The function 

 of these is not known, but it has been suggested that they may secrete the gummy 

 material which causes the eggs to adhere together. The eyes, either two or four 

 in number, are placed on the sides of the forepart of the head-region. 



The false scorpions, which occur in all temperate and tropical countries, live 

 for the most part under stones and the bark of trees, or hidden in moss or vegetable 

 rubbish ; only two European species, namely, Chelifer cancroides and Chiridium 

 museorum, are commonly found in human dwellings, in dark corners and the 

 wainscoting of rooms, in herbaria, or even in boxes of insect collections. Under 

 these conditions the former is but rarely met with, but large numbers have been 

 taken together in old bee-hives, wasp-nests, and badly kept pigeon-houses. The 

 two species, however, are by no means found exclusively in habitats of this nature, 



