296 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 



immovable digit of tlie clielicerae* or mandibles, and no spine beneath 

 the aculeus on the poison vesicle of the tail. The characters of 

 Isometrus Mr. Oates has already pointed out, and in connexion with 

 this genus it only remains to be said that it has recently been split 

 into two by Prof. Kraepelin of Hamburg, who thinks that those 

 species which have the proximal tibial segment of the 3rd and 4th 

 pairs of legs spurred at the apex, should be regarded as a distinct 

 genus, to which he has given the name Archisometrus. 



Mr. Oates' list of the Indian and Burmese species of Isometrus was 

 complete to date. Subsequently Dr. Thorell has described one mora 

 species {I. fece) from Burma ; and I have been compelled to relegate 

 to the world of synonyms Mr. Oates' species /. phipsoni, which was 

 described from Tenasserim. It is certainly identical with messor of 

 Simon (1884), weberi of Karsch (1882) and almost certainly with 

 scutilus of Koch (1842). With regard to the remainder of Mr. Oates' 

 paper I have only to say that the specimens that he identified as 

 atomarius of Simon are not to my mind distinct from his examples 

 of varius, and that the species that he has termed varius is the one 

 that I, following Dr. Thorell, look upon as mueronatus of Fabricius. 

 In any case curvidigital of Grervais is an older name for it than 

 varius of Kochf. 



It will thus be seen that there are only some nine or ten species 

 of this family recorded from the whole of India, Ceylon, and British 

 Burma. Judging from other countries, similarly situated, this num- 

 ber is very small. But I do not for a moment doubt that with a 

 little diligent collecting it could be more than doubled in a very 

 short time. For next to nothing has been published on the scorpions 

 of the centre of Hindostan. 



In the family Scorpionidce the sternum is not triangular but 

 pentagonal. 



Mr. Thurston has sent to the British Museum representatives of 

 only two genera — namely, Rormurus and Scorpio. Hormurus belongs 



* In his paper on the Indian species of Isometrus, Mr. Oates applies the term 

 chelicerse to the palpi or chelae. 



1 1 trust it will be understood that my remarks concerning my friend Mr. Oates' 

 paper, have not been made with any ill-becoming feeling of criticism. It has simply 

 been my wish to give a brief resume of the work done in Indian scorpions during the 

 past three years. 



