1886, ] Geology and Faleontology. 273 
Paleophonus nuncius Thor. & Lindstr.1 The joint was perhaps 
armed with a strong spine near the base (as is the case with the 
fifth joint in Pale@ophonus nuncius); at all events, the two joints 
have no resemblance to the claws of ordinary scorpions. But 
besides this, there are several other reasons for doubting that Pro- 
scorpius belongs to the Dionychopodes. In Palzophonus all the 
joints with the exception of the last, are cylindrical or nearly so; in 
other scorpions the “a is compressed and convex longitudinally 
on the under side; and in this respect Proscorpius appears to 
have resembled Palzophonus and not the Dionychopodes. The 
tolerably well-preserved leg of the first pair of Proscorpius seems 
to show that most of the joints of the legs have been compara- 
tively short in this animal, and in this particular also it resembles 
Paleophonus and differs trom the Dionychopodes. The “ crowd- 
ing forward of the limbs and appendages” depends on the shortness 
of the posterior cox, and isa characteristic that distinguishes Pro- 
scorpius from the Dionychopodes, but not from Palzophonus. 
(It is not probable that Proscorpius differed from other scorpions 
inthe number of the joints of the legs; if we assume that in the 
best preserved leg of Mr. Whitfield’s specimen the first joint or 
coxa is concealed by the margin of the cephalothorax, and that the 
leg is broken at the base of the last joint, it would seem to con- 
sist of seven joints, quite as in all other scorpions.) 
Whitfield ; 
Mr. Peach’s Scotch Palæophonus, being, as Mr. Whitfield justly 
remarks 
the 
I be 
forms no 
rax, re 
€specially by the shape of the fingers of the mandibles, which, if 
they really had such a form in the living animal, as from Mr. Whit- 
field’s figures they appear to have, differ materially from those of 
Palzophonus and all other known scorpions. 
‘It will be seen from the foregoing lines, that I cannot find that 
Proscorpius differs essentially from the hitherto known scorpions 
morthet respects than in the somewhat shorter cephalothorax, and 
Perhaps, in the form of the mandibles. Its systematical position 
Ppears to me to be in the close vicinity of Palzophonus, and 
1 A 
Thorell and Lindström, loc. cit., fig. 1. 
