228 



SCIEXCE- GOSSIP. 



cable, either in the middle of the seta, at either 

 extremity, or through its entire length. The direc- 

 tion appears to be fairly uniform in many of the 

 species here enumerated, even when collected from 

 widely separated localities. In a few instances, 

 however. I have only been able to examine solitary 

 examples. 



Perhaps this brief reference to an interesting 



subject may attract some of the readers of Scie>~ce- 

 Gi >ssip to relate then - experience on the matters 

 mentioned. By a comparison of notes it should be 

 easy to determine the constancy of some of the 

 conditions described, although, I fear, it will be 

 more difficult to detect their cause. 

 Walton. Liverpool, 



December 1900. 



NOTES OS -PIXMMr ANIMAL-. 



By H. Wai.lis Kew. 



( Continued from page 170.) 



VI. PSEUDO-SCOBPIOXS. 



HP HE Pseudo-scorpions are known to most people, 

 -*- at least by reputation and from book illustra- 

 tions. Notwithstanding their small size and want 

 of affinity, the creatures are surprisingly like little 

 scorpions without tails. This superficial resem- 

 blance is mainly due to the second pair of 

 appendages, the pedipalps, which, compared with 

 the rest of the creature, are enormously de- 

 veloped. They bear, like the pedipalps of the 

 scorpion, large chelae or pincers. The little legs 

 and the flat segmented body give the creatun 

 heterogeneous form ; and when brandishing the 

 it pedipalps as they move they have a ferocious 

 appearance which, as Dr. Hagen has remarked, 

 is rendered ridiculous by their little bodies and 

 helplessness ('). Their spinning work does not 

 press itself upon our notice ; and though the crea- 

 tures are to a large extent predaceous. they are not 

 known to use their silk for spreading a snare after 

 the manner of spiders (*). They employ it, how- 

 ever, in the fabrication of a kind of nest or cocoon 

 in which they are protected, in some cases at any 

 rate, during hibernation, at the time of moulting, 

 and perhaps also during egg-laying. This is the 

 only use. so far as the writer is aware, which the 

 creatures make of their spinning. It has been 

 stated that they spin an egg-cocoon ( 3 ), but this 

 appears to be a mistake. 



Hermann (1804) mentions the finding of a 

 pseudo-scorpion in a silken follicle, covered with 

 dust and attached to a wall ( 4 ). Menge (1855) 

 relates that a Chemes eimieoides, which he one 

 day placed in a vessel, had by the morning con- 

 structed a web between the wall of the vessel and 

 a fragment of bark. At this web it was still work- 

 ing, and the cocoon thus formed was somewhat 



CI) Hagen, " American Pseudo-scorpions," Record of American 

 ^Entomology, 1868, pp. 48-52. 



- v:_on, - Les Arachnides de France." viL (187 

 12-13. 



(3 ) Cambridge, " On the British Species of False-scorpions,'' 

 Froc. Dorset Xat. Hist. <fc Antiq. Field Clnb xiii. (1892). pp. 199- 

 231. 



(4) Hermann, quoted by Simon. I.e. 



circular, about i mm. in diameter by 2 mm. in 

 depth. There was only just room within for the 

 animal and no opening was observable through 

 which it could come out. According to the same 

 naturalist, the creature constructs its cocoon at 

 the time of moulting, when it remains enclosed 

 about five days, until its new integuments acquire 

 strength. Three months afterwards an individual 

 returned to the same cocoon for hibernation ( 5 ). 

 S. J. M'Intire (1868). who placed a number of 

 pseudo-scorpions in cork cells, found that a chelif er 

 constructed for itself a snug silken cocoon, in 

 texture like the web of the house-spider. The 

 animal was generally seen sitting in the entrance. 



Spisxixg-i - MB of Pseudo-scorpion. 



Pincers of one of the chelicerae, or mandibles, of a pseodd- 

 scorpion, showing the terminations of some of the spinning- 

 ■lucts ( -/), and also the comb, etc,, believed to be need in 

 manipulating the silt. Much magnified. After Bernard, Joarn. 

 Linn. Soc. : ZooL xxiv. (1893). pL xxxL,fig. 2a. 



only withdrawing from observation when disturbed ; 

 sometimes it went abroad and walked about, but 

 it invariably returned to the cocoon. All the 

 healthy chelifers kept by this observer through 

 the winter spun similar cocoons, and hibernated 

 in them. The structures were generally ovaL with 

 room for the occupant to turn within, and usually 

 with one or two apertures through which the owner 

 could walk out when the weather was mild. It is sup- 

 posed that the creatures sometimes made mistakes 

 in returning, for more than once two were seen in the 

 same cocoon. An individual, regarded by MTntire as 



I -age, quoted by Simon, Jx. 



