Kew : Lincolnshire Psendoscorpions. 



Wootton, in 1878, has noted of Obisium muscorum that it is 

 ' fond of catching- hold of the legs of flies ' ;* but this, I under- 

 stand, is a mistake, the Chelifer referred to being" Chernes 

 nodosus. Mr. de Courtois de Lang-lade, who writes from Arles- 

 sur-Rhone, states that one of his sons who had been examining 

 a heap of flies caught in a trap had found very small Scorpions 

 on the leg-s of a number of them;f and Dr. Hess, more recently, 

 has reported the occurrence of a Pseudoscorpion referred to 

 Chelifer cancroides on one of the front leg-s of a house-fly at 

 Mulhouse (Alsace) ; he records in this connection an interesting- 

 experiment to which we shall recur. % A number of cases 

 observed in England from time to time were reported by Mr. 

 Cambridge in 1892. The Pseudoscorpion in every case proved 

 to be Chernes nodosus, specimens of which, found attached to 

 legs of flies, were received by Mr. Cambridge from Mr. Dale, 

 Granville's Wootton ; Mr. Campbell, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire ; 

 Mr. F. 6. P.-Cambridge, Carlisle; Mr. Stoddart, Bristol; Mr. 

 Bignell, Stonehouse, Devon ; and twice, as above noted, from 

 Bradford. || Mr. Campbell informs me that his specimen was caught 

 on the leg of a blow-fly, on a window, in October 1887. The dis- 

 tinguished arachnologist, Simon, states that observations of the 

 present kind have been made not only in Germany, Switzerland, 

 France [and other European countries], but also in Algeria, and 

 in America.^ Of the American observations, Professor Leidy 

 mentions having occasionally met with Chelifer cancroides? 

 attached to the house-fly ;** and Mr. Banks has reported the 

 attachment of his Cher7ies pallipes, in Colorado, to a fly of the 

 family Dexiidce.ft According to Dr. Hagen, Chernes sanborni 

 attaches itself to the legs of flies in Massachusetts, and Ch. 

 loewii in Panama. Hagen mentions also that a single Obisium 

 had occurred to him in America on a daddy-long-legs {Tipuld).%% 

 Professor Berg has reported a case observed in a house by 



* C. W. Dale, History of Glanville's Wootton, 1878, p. 325. 



f F. de Courtois de Lang-lade, La Nature, XI. (1883), i er semestre p. 71 ; 

 and see also P. Megnin, ibid., XIV. (1886), 2 e semestre pp. 241-3. 



JW. Hess, ' Uber die Pseudoscorpioniden als Rauber,' Zoologischer 

 Anzeig'er, XVII. (1894), pp. 119-21. 



J! O. P.-Cambridge, 1892, I.e. 



§ E. Simon, ' Les Arachnides de France,' VII. (1879), pp. 11-12, 33-34. 

 **J. Leidy, Proceeding's of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia, 1877, pp. 760-1. 



ft N. Banks, Entomological News, VI. (1895), p. 115. 



XX H. Hagen, Zoologischer Anzeiger, II. (1879), pp. 399-400. 



Naturalist, 



