1882.] 



On the Coxal Glands of Scorpio. 



99 



Kochii and Buthus afer by some authors), through, the kind exertions of 

 my friend Dr. Henry Trimen, Director of the Royal Gardens at 

 Peridenya, Ceylon, also of the fine North African Androctonus funestus 

 (Ehrenberg spec), of which I received specimens in a living state 

 from Algeria through the courteous intervention of Professor Carl 

 Vogl, of Geneva ; and, lastly, of Scorpio Italians, Roessel, and Sc. 

 Carjpathicus, Linn., the common little Italian scorpions (not to be 

 •confused with the larger yellow Spanish Sc. Europceus of Linnaeus, 

 which is an Androctonus closely allied to A. funestus and often called 

 A. occitanus), for which I have to thank Mr. Gibson Carmichael. When 

 the prosomatic carapace is removed from one of these Scorpions 

 recently killed, the white oviform coxal glands are seen in the position 

 described, right and left of the alimentary tract. The anterior 

 glandular caeca (fig. 1. A.) of the alimentary tract, called salivary 

 glands by Newport, rest upon the coxal glands and hide them to 

 a certain extent. This proximity has led to the notion that the 

 coxal glands are connected w T ith the alimentary canal. 



Newport in the plates illustrating his masterly description of the 

 circulatory and nervous system of the Scorpion, published in the 

 •*' Phil. Trans." nearly forty years ago (1843), has figured these 

 bodies, but has not described them in the text of his work. In the 

 description of the plate they are spoken of as "lateral appendages of 

 the thoracic portion of the canal, (?) gizzard (?)." The accuracy 

 and completeness of Newport's account of the vascular and nervous 

 systems is worthy of profound admiration, when it is remembered 

 that he had only specimens preserved in alcohol to deal with. At the 

 same time this condition of his specimens accounts for the incorrect- 

 ness of his conclusions as to the very soft and decomposable glandular 

 structures. 



Leon Dufour (" Memoires de l'lnstitut," Tom. 14, 1856) has also 

 described and figured the coxal glands in Androctonus occitanus 

 {Scorpio JEuropams) the large yellow scorpion of southern France and 

 Spain. Dufour had the advantage of using freshly-killed specimens, 

 but his account of the anatomy of this species appears to me to be, 

 nevertheless, curiously inaccurate in many important particulars. He 

 very properly does not consider the glandular caeca of the most 

 ^anterior portion of the alimentary canal as " salivary glands " as did 

 Newport, but recognises the identity of their structure with that of 

 the large glandular masses filling up the mesosoma which have been 

 termed "hepatic," and accordingly describes the " salivary glands " 

 of Newport as the anterior or cephalothoracic lobes of the liver. 



He, however, describes the pair of coxal glands as "salivary 



Ehrenberg. The confusion of nomenclature among the Scorpions 19 very great. 

 Peters (" Berlin Monatsbericht," 1861, p. 510) has given the best systematic 

 arrangement of the sub -genera. 



H 2 



