MEMOIRS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
MOM 
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53 
the second joint is a little stouter, but the fingers are larger. The pedipalps are remarkably long 
and slender, the terminal joint very long, and ending in a short, powerful, solid spine; the first 
joint is scarcely longer than the second is thick, with three inner teeth and a single stout outer 
oue; second joint nearly as long as the third and fourth together; on the inside are two large 
basal teeth ending in hairs, aud in the middle are three small unequal ones; third joint thicker 
than the second, a single distal internal seta, while the outer edge is finely denticulate; fourth 
joint nearly twice as long as the third, with four or five fine external spines; a stout setiferous 
basal internal spine and a much larger one on the distal third; fifth joint about the same length 
as the second, being very long, the inner edge nearly straight, the outer edge regularly curved, 
with no spines; on the inner are four large setiferous spines, the longest seta being somewhat 
longer than the joint is thick; the joint ends in a large, stout, short, solid spine; length 7 mm . 
Legs long and slender; first pair 4.5 mm long, with four tarsal subjoints; second pair 9 mm long, with 
eight small tarsal subjoints, while P. robusta has but five; fourth pair with five subjoints in the 
tarsus, and white in color. Color of the body dull honey-yellow; edge of the abdominal segments 
dusky; second pair of legs dusky, especially on the distal two-thirds; second, fourth, and fifth 
joints of the fourth pair dusky, except at the ends. Length of the body, including the folded 
chelicerse, 4 mm . 
This in some respects remarkable species differs from all the others of the genus either in 
Europe or this country in the spiny body, the very long pedipalps, with their long terminal joint 
ending in a short stout spine, also the long interocellar spine and the remote eyes. It has long 
legs for a terricolous species, the second pair having eight tarsal subjoints. It 'approaches P. 
armata in the shape aud length of the pedipalps aud chelicerse, as well as in the many-jointed 
second tarsi. It is possible that the Mammoth Cave species has been derived from some such form 
as this. The present species was collected by us either in Key West or Tortugas, Florida, proba¬ 
bly the former locality. No note was taken as to its exact habitat. The description is introduced 
here because it is the only out-of-door form east of Colorado as yet known. 
Remarks. —Of the genus Phalangodes it may be said that while it was instituted by Tellkampf 
for a single species, that inhabiting Mammoth Cave (P. armata ), it is evident that this is the most 
aberrant species of the genus, and that the terricolous species, as well as the more robust of the 
cavicolous forms, should more properly be regarded as the most typical species. On the other 
hand, as our figures and descriptions will show, P. armata should not be regarded as geuerically 
different from the eyed species formerly by Simon and ourselves placed under Scotolemon. We 
see that the differential characters are elastic and only specific, since, for example, P. Jlavescens 
has a blind variety. 
Simon records six French species (two additional ones occur in Spain and the other in Italy T ) 
and says : “The Phalangodes are all essentially lucifugous ; the most are cavernicolous, some are 
terricolous, others are found simply in the mosses of thick and humid woods. The Phalangodes 
armata Teilkf. of the United States presents no traces of eyes; in the European species these ^ 
organs are, on the contrary, clearly visible, being colored black. Authors have founded on this 
character the genus Scotolemon; but I have recently found a species in which the eyes are 
extremely reduced, deprived of pigment, aud even sometimes disappearing, thus compelling us to 
reunite the genera Scotolemon and Phalangodes. The fineness and length of the appendages are 
always in relation with the atrophy of the eyes; thus, in P. armata , which is blind, the limbs 
attain their maximum of development, while in clavigera and terricola they remain short aud more 
robust, but other species, such as lucasi and navarica, make exactly the passage between the 
two extremes.” P. navarica Simon, from a cave in the Lower Pyrenees, approaches nearest to 
P. armata in three of five specimens; “the eyes are excessively small, pnuctiform, and deprived 
of pigment; in the two others it is impossible to distinguish them; the feet are also slenderer and 
longer than iu the other Pyrenean Phalangodes, without, however, attaining the dimensions of 
those of P. armata 
It appears that P. armata is in the form of its chelieerm and pedipalps related to the Floridan 
P. spinifera, differing mainly in the slenderer body, the longer legs, aud absence of eyes and 
spines on the body. It is from such a form as this that P. armata may have been derived. 
