518 SUPPLEMENT 



is more obscure. But in the soutliern part of Spain, a species 

 has been found as large as the aranedides. 



The Solpuga faialis of Herbst, a native of Bengal, should, 

 according to this author, be distinguished from its congeners 

 by its forceps being horizontal. But the question is, 

 whether this position be natural and constant, and not the 

 result of some forced change. 



The Greeks anciently employed in the composition of the 

 medical substance called theriaca, a species of phalangium. 

 It was the same solpuga, according to the opinion of the 

 naturalist just quoted. 



The genus CheliferIs the plialangium of Linnaeus, the 

 Scorpio of Fabricius, and the ohisium of llliger. 



The most known species of this genus, the Ch. cancroides, 

 or scorpion araignee of GeoSxoj^faux scorpion d'' Europe of 

 Degeer, was at first placed by Linnseus with acarus. He 

 afterwards united it to phalangium, with which it has but a 

 very trifling resemblance. Geoffroy, with reason, has made a 

 genus proper of it, which he has named chelifer, in French 

 pince ; but he has placed in the same genus the acarus longi- 

 cornis, an arachnid of quite another family. The Ch. can- 

 croides, with Fabricius, is a species of scorpion, and these 

 animals are in fact very neai-ly related. The cheliferi, how- 

 ever, differ from the scorpions by their body not being ter- 

 minated by a tail, by having but two or four simple eyes, and 

 by being destitute of those pectinated lamina called coml)S, 

 which are exhibited by these latter arachnida. The younger 

 Hermann, in his excellent work on the apterous insects of 

 Linnaeus, has adopted the genus chelifer of Geoffroy, and 

 has made known several species, which he has separated into 

 two divisions, founded on new and acute observations. He 

 has made of the acarus longicornis of Linnaeus, and of some 

 other analogous arachnida, a genus proper, scirus, but which 

 had been previously established by M. Latreille. 



