Mr. A. S. Packard, Jun., on Limiilus. 373 



pa]a3ontology shows that in the Carboniferous period there 

 were scorpions almost generically the same as the existing 

 ones, and with them BelUnurus, closely resembling the Meso- 

 zoic and recent Limuli^ which indicates that the latter type 

 has always been a marine one, without any possible use for 

 stigmata. Moreover the Eurypterine Merostomata with 

 crustacean gills flourished as early as the Lower Silurian 

 period. 



Passing over, for want of space and time, the three or four 

 pages of trivial criticisms of our own views by Professor 

 Lankester, we are thus brought to the close of Mr. Lankester's 

 article, and to his tabular view of his new classification of the 

 Arachnida, one which is calculated at least to take away the 

 breath of the ordinary systematist. 



Any attempt at reasoning with our author, whose methods 

 are so opposed to the inductive mode of scientific reasoning, 

 and whose views are often founded on baseless hypotheses, 

 would probably be fruitless. He is " surprised " that we 

 should persist in believing that Limulus is a Crustacean. 



We will in reply and to close this criticism simply quote 

 some statements of the late Dr. von Willemoes-Suhm, whose 

 important discoveries have been overlooked by all writers on 

 Limulus. Our attention has been called to them through Mr. 

 E. Burgess by Professor Walter Faxon, who has kindly 

 sent us the subjoined extracts from von Willemoes-Sulim's 

 letters. 



The first reference by von Willemoes-Suhra was in the 

 *■ Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Zoologie,' xxix. 1877 ; 

 writing from Yeddo under date of May 7, 1875, he says, " I 

 have in the meantime discovered in the Philippines that the 

 Limulus living there develops from a free-swimming larva, 

 viz. a Nauplius stage, a fact of great significance to the whole 

 doctrine of crustacean development. The preliminary notice 

 concerning it, which I shall soon send to the lioyal Society, 

 will soon come to your notice, Packard and Dohrn have had 

 to do with an animal which, like the crayfish, has a condensed 

 development" (p. cxxxii), 



A fuller statement is in a postscript to a letter written 

 aboard the ' Challenger ' to Professor Kupfter, dated " Zam- 

 boanga, Mindaua, 4 Februar, 1875," printed in ' Challenger- 

 Briefe von lludolf von Willemoes-Suhra, Dr. Phil., 1872- 

 1875. Nach dem Tode des Verfasser herausgegeben von 

 seiner Mutter,' Leipzig, 1877, pp, 157, 158, I am indebted 

 to Professor Faxon for the extract, of which I give the fol- 

 lowing translation : — 



" I send you this postscript in order to forward early in- 

 Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. is. 26 



