PEDIPALPI  ,

Arachnida (q.v) related to the spiders, and serving in a measure to bridge over the structural interval between the latter and the scorpions . The appendages of the second pair are large and prehensile, as in scorpions, but are armed with spines, to impale and hold prey . The appendages of the third pair, representing the first pair'of walking legs in spiders and scorpions, are, on the contrary, long, attenuated and many-jointed at the end . Like the antennae of insects, they act as feelers . It is from this structural feature that the term " pedipalpi " has been derived . In the tailless division of the Pedipalpi, sestet • . . Mexican tailed Pedipalp (Mastigoproetus giganteus) . namely the Amblypygi of which Phrynus is a commonly cited type, these tactile appendages are exceedingly long and lash-like, whereas in the tailed division, the Uropygi, of which Thelyphonus is best known, the limb is much shorter and less modified . Thelyphonus and its allies, however, have a long tactile caudal flagellum, the homologue of the scorpion's sting; but its exact use is unknown . A third division, the Tartarides, a subordinate group of the Uropygi, contains minute Arachnida differing principally from the typical Uropygi in having the caudal process unjointed and short . Apart from the Tartarides, the Pedipalpi are large or medium-sized Arachnida, nocturnal in habits and spending the day under stones, logs of wood or loosened bark . Some species of the Uropygi (Thelyphonidae) dig burrows; and in the east there is a family of Amblypygi, the Charontidae, of which many of the species live in the recesses of deep caves .

Specimens of another species have been found under stones between

tide marks in the Andaman Islands . The Pedipalpi feed upon insects, and like spiders, are oviparous . The eggs after being laid are carried about by the mother, adhering in a glutinous mass to the underside of the abdomen . Pedipalpi date back to the Carboniferous Period, occurring in deposits of that age both in Europe and North America . More-over, the two main divisions of the order, which were as sharply differentiated then as they are now, have existed practically unchanged from that remote epoch . In spite of the untold ages they have been in existence, the Pedipalpi are more restricted in range than the scorpions . The Uropygi are found only in Central and South America and in south and eastern Asia, from India and south China to the Solomon Islands . The absence of the entire order from Africa is an interesting fact . The distribution of the Amblypygi practically covers that of the Uropygi, but in addition they extend from India through Arabia into tropical and southern Africa . Both groups are unknown in Madagascar, in Australia, with the exception possibly of the extreme north, and in New Zealand . Very little can be said with certainty about the distribution of the Tartar-ides . They have been recorded from the Indian Region, West Africa and sub-tropical America .

(R . I .