Kew : Lincolnshire Pseudoscorpions. 



Mr. Backhausen while engaged on the Argentine-Chilian 

 Boundary Commission ;•* and we have, moreover, the following- 

 interesting- note from Mr. F. Knab, of Chicopee, Massachusetts : 

 A few days ag - o my father captured a troublesome fly, and, as he held it, 

 found to his surprise that three Pseudoscorpions had left it and were 

 Crawling rapidly over his hand. Upon this more flies were captured and 

 three found infested with Pseudoscorpions. Of fifty flies captured the 

 following- day two carried Pseudoscorpions ; one had two attached to 

 a single leg. In each case the Pseudoscorpion hung on by a single pincer.f 



More than one Pseudoscorpion, as we see from the just- 

 quoted note, may be carried by a single fly. This fact, though 

 concealed by me until now, has long been known. Dr. F. Low 

 lias reported the occurrence, on a window in September 1861, of 

 the little Ulidia erythrophthahna, to the hind legs of which, 

 clinging symmetrically, were two specimens of Chernes widen' 

 C.Koch.; Another fly, to one of the legs of which two Pseudo- 

 scorpions were attached, was exhibited by Hagen in 1867 to the 

 Boston Society of Natural History ; || the Pseudoscorpions in 

 this case pertained, I believe, to the Chernes sanborni already 

 mentioned. One gathers, moreover, that some of the flies 

 referred to by Mr. de Courtois de Langlade had two or three 

 Pseudoscorpions upon them ; and Mr. Stainton in the com- 

 munication to the Entomological Society of London already 

 quoted mentioned having seen a fly with three of these 

 Arachnids on the same leg. Dr. Loew states that some of the 

 Ulidia demandata observed by him were beset with three or 

 more Pseudoscorpions ; and the writer of the editorial note in 

 * The Entomological Magazine ' refers to the attachment of 

 from one to four to the legs of Lonchcea vaginalis. The Rev. L. 

 Jenyns (afterwards Blomefield) mentions having taken, from 

 one small fly, four specimens of ' Chelifer geoffroyi ' ; § a Musca 

 aomestica produced to Dr. Lukis, of Guernsey, in August 1S32, 

 had four specimens of ' Chelifer cane roidcs ' affixed to one leg;*! 



* C. Berg, ' Pseudoscorpionidenkniffe,' ibid., XVI. (1893), pp. 446-S. 



I F. Knab, Entomological News, VIII. (1897), p. 13. 



+ F. Low, Verhandlungen der k.-k. zoologisch-botanischen Gesellschafl 

 in Wien, XVI. (1866), p. 944. Another example of the clinging of a Pseudo- 

 scorpion to a small fly is mentioned by Low, ibid., XVII. (1867), p. 74b. 



II H. Hagen, Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, XI. 

 (1867), pp. 323-4; Record of American Entomology, 1868, pp. 48-52. 



§ L. Jenyns, ' Observations in Natural History,' 1846, p. 295 ; the Cheltfet 

 geoffroyi Leach is a Chernes. The author adds— I do not know on what 

 authority — that these animals 'arc often found on TipuZee.' 



IFF. C. Lukis, Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, VII. (1834), p. 1(13. 



IQOl July >. 



