Annals of the Transvaal Museum 
7 
Pocock’s scheme 1 , as given in the Arachnida volume of the Fauna of 
British India, rather than that adopted by Kraepelin or the slightly 
different one of Sorensen: it may be noted, however, that Pocock’s 
account is not free from error, for he represents legs II-IV as having 
each the same number of trochanter segments. The segments of the 
palp are: coxa, trochanter, femur, patella, tibia, and tarsus, which 
latter is usually fixed immovably to the tibia, is without claws, and is 
composed of one segment, excluding the rudimentary segment or seg- 
ments found in the terminal sucker, which according to Sorensen is 
morphologically equivalent to the claw-bearing plantula of a walking 
leg. The segments of the legs are similar, but between the coxa and the 
femur there are several trochanter segments, viz. two in legs I and II, 
and three in legs III and IV : a special term is given to the distal trochan- 
ter segment in each case, viz. the trochantin, although it is represented 
both by Kraepelin and Sorensen as “the basal joint of the femur/ ’ and 
thus equivalent to the single segment called trochanter in the palp. 
The middle trochanter segment of legs III and IV is termed the tro- 
chantella. This and the proximal segment to which the term trochanter 
now becomes restricted are, according to Sorensen, parts of the coxa — 
a conclusion which seems to me very reasonable from consideration of 
such a case as the fourth leg of Chelypus. The joints between trochan- 
tella and trochantin, and between trochantin and femur, permit of a 
good deal of twisting of the leg, but, as previously mentioned, the next 
two joints only permit of movements in one plane. The tarsi of the legs 
present a character which varies considerably throughout the order, 
although within the limits of the same genus the tarsal characters are 
generally very constant in specimens of all ages. The segmentation of 
the tarsi is utilised as a very convenient generic character, the range of 
which is sufficiently indicated in my key to the genera. 
In various genera, the tarsus of the fourth leg is more numerously 
segmented than the tarsi of preceding legs, and as this multi-segmented 
condition is presumably secondary, the occurrence of minor segmented 
aberrations from the normal may perhaps be expected. I believe that 
such aberrations will prove to be not very uncommon. One such has 
even been made the type of a distinct genus (Broomiella Pock.), for this 
seems to be founded on an abnormal specimen of Daesia sehreineri, 
having a two-jointed fourth tarsus instead of the usual four-jointed 
tarsus. I have also seen a male of Solpuga hostilis from Doornkop, in 
1 Nevertheless, within the comparatively narrow Lmits of the Arachnida, the 
homologies of the individual segments of the legs amongst the various orders are by 
no means certain : whiJst a uniform nomenclature for the Arthropoda as a whole seems 
quite impracticable on the basis of homology. Many morphologists believe that 
a. though the palp in many orders is 6-jointed, yet the segmentation is not strictly 
homologous throughout as Pocock on the other hand has represented it. This view 
is set forth in Simon’s important work Hisioive natuvelle des Avaignees. Thus, a 
patella of the type found in spiders is held to be wanting in the Solifugae, and it 
must be admitted that the nature of the articulations is quite different in these two 
orders: the segment termed patella in this paper is represented to be equivalent to 
the combined patella and tibia of spiders, and the segment here called tibia as 
homologous with the metatarsus of spiders. 
