Clare Island Survey. 



38 

 PSEUDOSCORPIONES. 



By H. WALLIS KEW. 



Reurl February 27. Published June 15, 1911. 



A careful examination of Clare Island for False-Scorpions was made from 

 the 17th to the 22nd of June, 1910, when most parts of the island were 

 visited, including the old castle and more modern buildings at the Quay, much 

 of the coast-line, the broken cliffs of Toormore, the stony drift-covered region 

 north of Kinnacorra, the small native scrub of Portlea, the low inland cliff near 

 Ballytoohy, the northern flank of Knoeknaveen, and the great southern slope 

 and summit of Croaghmore. The writer was joined on one or two occasions 

 by Mr. Thomas Greer and Mr. Robert Welch; and altogether a somewhat 

 thorough search was more or less satisfactorily completed. As a result it 

 appeared certain that the little animals for which we were looking were here 

 unusually scarce ; this fact being related in the main no doubt to the character 

 of the island's surface, which is in great part more or less peat-covered and 

 boggy. Obisium maritimwm Leach — a false -scorpion of exceptional habitat — 

 is doubtless by no means uncommon on the shore below high-water mark ; but 

 for the rest only a few individuals of Ghthonius tetrachelatus Preys, and one 

 of the common Obisium muscorwm Leach were found. Of species which follow 

 man none occurred. The byres were too damp for Cheiridium museorttm Leach 

 and other species which are apt to live in such places ; and even the common 

 Chthonim Bayi L. Koch, which has, mainly as a low-land species, a wide 

 range in Ireland, appeared to be absent. 



OBISIIDAE. 



Obisium maritimum Leach. 



This animal lives on the shore between tide-marks — always below high- 

 Water mark— and generally in places subject to rather deep submersion at 

 every tide. By taking out a geologist's hammer and chisels and splitting 

 open narrow fissures in the slaty rocks we found it in some plenty in two places 

 about G-ubanoomeen, on the southern coast of the island. The rocks here had 

 a moderate covering of Fucus and acorn-barnacles, and were studded over 



K.I. A. PKOC, VOL. XXXI. C 38 



