22 THORELL & LINDSTRÖM, SILURIAN SCORPION FROM GOTLAND. 



other species of Eoscorpius described by Peach, SuX\å possibly also E. Anglicus Woovw.'')^ 

 may provisionally be referred. Also the form of the palpi is very dissimilar in the 

 scorpions described by Peach: compare for example the palpi of E. euglyj)tus and E. 

 glaber^). This latter species is remarkable for its short and dumpy legs, somewhat 

 resembling those of Palseophonus; but the last tarsal joint in E. glaber has the same 

 form as in all other scorpions, both Carboniferous and recent, and it is similarly pro- 

 vided with two strong claws. 



Existing scorpions form such a homogeneous and sharply defined group, that 

 Pala3ophonus, which deviates so much from them all in the shape of its walking limbs, 

 cannot Avell be said to be more closely related to one species than to another. The 

 classification of the recent scorpions is, as is well known, chiefly based on the differ- 

 ent form of the sternum and the tooth-armature of the mandibles, as well as on the 

 composition of the combs. As to Palaäophonus, nothing is known of the more detailed 

 structure of its combs. In the form of the large sternum it would seem perfectly to 

 agree with the family Pandinoidce, and if, as is probable, the movable finger of its man- 

 dibles is provided with a single row of teeth, Palaaophonus would also in this charac- 

 ter agree with a part of this family, viz. with the subfamily Pandinini. In the last 

 mentioned character it would also resemble the family Bothriuroidse (Telegonoidas)^) 

 and the genus Vejovis C. L. Koch. We have already stated that the Eoscorpioid^ (at 

 least E. euglyptus) also show by the form of their sternum some affinity with Palaso- 

 phonus and the Pandinoidse, which latter family comprises, in the subfamily Pandi- 

 nini, the lowest members of the group of the two-clawed, recent scorpions, for in- 

 stance the genera Ischnurus C. L. Koch and Hormurus Thor. To this sub-family be- 

 long, not only such small scorpions as the species of Euscorpius Thor. {•»Scorpior> jiavi- 

 caudis De Gekr, Italiens Herbst, and others) so common in the south of Europé, which 

 somewhat resemble Palseophonus in size, but also the large forms of the genus Pan- 

 dinus Thor., as for instance ))Sco7'pio'i> Africanus L., and Indicus Id. To the same 

 group Belisarius Xamheui Sim., the only knoAvn scorpion that is destltute of eyes, also 

 belongs — which organs may possihly also be absent in our Pal(£ophonus nuncius. 



') H. WooDWARD, On tlie disoovery of a fossil Scorpion in the British Coal measures, in the Quarterlj' Journ. 

 of the Geol. Soc., XXXII, p. 57, PI. VIII. — E. Änglicus Woodw. is represented only by a palpus, 

 the two last segments of the abdomen, and the tail. 



2) Loc. cit, p. 400, Pl. XXII, figs. 2—2?. 



^) Ås the name Telegonus was already given by Htjeneh. to a genus of Lepidoptera in 1816, and thus long 

 before C. L. Koch (in 1836) applied it to a genus of scorpions, Karsch, in his Arachnologische Bei- 

 träge, Decas I, Scorpionologische Fragmente (Zeitschr. f. d. gesammt. Naturwissensch., LIII (1880), p. 

 408), has given to the latter genus the name Mecocentnis (»llacocentrits» is probably an error of the press). 

 The family Telegonoidce he names Acanthochiroida. But as AcantlwcMriis Pet. 1861 is synonymous with 

 Cercophonius Pet. 1861, and as Peters certainly would not have established the former genus, if he had 

 known that it was founded on the male of a species of the latter, the name of Acanthochrrus has generally 

 and properly been abandoned; and as one cannot well name the family after a genus which is no more 

 in use, we adept for it the name Bothrmroida, proposed by Keyserling in Die Arachniden xiustraliens, 

 II, p. 36. 



