198 CANON A. M. NOEMAN ON THE PODOSOMATA 



The PoDOSOMATA (=Pycuogonida) of the Temperate Atlantic and Arctic 

 Oceans. By Canon A. M. Noeman, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., 

 F.L.S. 



(Plates 29 & 30.) 



[Read 19tli March, 1908.] 



PoDOSOMATA is a most appropriate name which has been assigned to the 

 class which embraces the allies o£ Pycnogonum. The name was given bj 

 Leach in 1815*, and employed by him in his subsequent papers. It is 

 curious how it should have escaped usage and had substituted for it 

 Pycnogonides, and its variations Pycnogonoidea, Pycnogonidea, and Pycno- 

 gonida, which are all, with the exception of the first French term, of later 

 date, and all objectionable, for it is not desirable that the name of a class 

 should be founded on the title of a genus which it embraces. Dr. Dohrn 

 (9) has employed the term Pantopoda, an appropriate title, yet not so 

 appropriate as Podosomata, which, with our present knowledge, expresses a 

 wider signification than was known to its author. Moreover, Leach divided 

 his Podosomata into two families, Pycnogonidese and Nymphonidese, which 

 find their equivalents in the two orders of Sars, Achelata and Euchelata, 

 while of that author's remaining third order, Cryptochelata, no example was 

 known in the beginning of the last century. 



Having a large number of Podosomata in my hands, obtained partly by 

 my own dredging excursions and partly by expeditions sent out by our 

 Government, I wrote a considerable portion of this paper some years ago ; 

 but when there were added North-East American species given me by Mr. 

 E. B. Wilson, a nearly complete series of co-types of the Mediterranean 

 forms described by Dr. Dohrn, others obtained by the Norwegian North 

 Atlantic Expedition through the kindness of Professor G. 0. Sars, and yet 

 others from the dredgings of the ' Ingolf ' Expedition, for which I am 

 indebted to the authorities of the Copenhagen Museum, it appeared to me 

 that with these advantages it might be useful if I brought together what was 

 known of this Class in that portion of the Ocean to which my study of the 

 marine fauna has been confined. The following synopsis embraces all species 

 known in the Temperate Atlantic (^. e., north of 35° N., including the 

 Mediterranean) and the Arctic Oceans. 



The general classification of G. 0. Sars has been adopted, except that the 

 Orders have been differently arranged. 



* Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xi. p. 308. 



