. Popular science monthly. nomous dart. The sculpture of the surface, consisting of tuberclesand longitudinal keels, entirely corresponds with that of living scor-pions. One of the stigmata on the right is visible, and clearly demon-strates that it must have belonged to an air-breathing animal, and thewhole organization indicates that it lived on dry land. ProfessorLindstrom points out, as a feature of great importance in the conforma-tion of the animal, the existence of four pairs of thoracic feet, largeand pointed, resembling the feet of the embryos of several other tra-cheates and animals l
. Popular science monthly. nomous dart. The sculpture of the surface, consisting of tuberclesand longitudinal keels, entirely corresponds with that of living scor-pions. One of the stigmata on the right is visible, and clearly demon-strates that it must have belonged to an air-breathing animal, and thewhole organization indicates that it lived on dry land. ProfessorLindstrom points out, as a feature of great importance in the conforma-tion of the animal, the existence of four pairs of thoracic feet, largeand pointed, resembling the feet of the embryos of several other tra-cheates and animals like the Campodea. This form of feet, he re-marks, no longer exists in the fossil scorpions of the carboniferous THE OLDEST AIR-BREATHERS. 397 fonnatioD, the appendices belonging to which resemble those foundin the scorpions of our own day. This species has been named PoJUb-ophoneui nuncbii. The Scottish specimen (Fig. 2) is described by Mr. Peach in Ma-ture ^ as being about 3:: 1^ 1. i^ I a naif long, and lying on its back. on the stone, It* exposed venrral surface shows almost every ex-ternal organ that can be seen in that position, and in this way servesto supplement the evidence supplied by the Swedish specimen. As inthe northern individual, the first and second pair of app>endages of the 398 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. cephalo-thorax in the Scottish example are chelate, but the palpi arenot quite so robust. The v/alking-limbs, though not so dumpy as inP. nuncius, also terminate in a single claw-like spike. The arrange-ment of the sternum shows a large pentagonal plate (metasternite),against which the wedge-shaped coxae of the fourth pair of walking-limbs abut. The coxae of the third pair bound the pentagonal platealong its upper margins, and meet in the mid-line of the body, wherethey are firmly united. The coxse of the first two pairs, as well asthe bases of the palpi, are drawn aside from the center line of thebody, showing that, as in recent scorpions, these alone we
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectscience, bookyear1872
