Fig. 25.—Section through one of the central eyes of a youngLimulus.

L, Cuticular or corneous lens.

hy, Epidermic cell-layer.

corn, Its corneagen portion immediately underlying the lens.

ret, Retinula cells.

nf, Nerve fibres.

con. tiss, Connective tissue (mesoblastic skeletal tissue).

(After Lankester and Bourne, Q. J. Mic. Sci., 1883.)

It is not surprising that with so highly developed an arterial system Limulus and Scorpio should have a highly developed mechanism for determining the flow of blood to the respiratory organs. That this is, so to speak, a need of animals with localized respiratory organs is seen by the existence of provisions serving a similar purpose in other animals, e.g. the branchial hearts of the Cephalopoda.

The veno-pericardiac muscles of Scorpio were seen and figured by Newport but not described by him. Those of Limulus were described and figured by Alphonse Milne-Edwards, but he called them merely “transparent ligaments,” and did not discover their muscular structure. They are figured and their importance for the first time recognized in the memoir on the muscular and skeletal systems of Limulus and Scorpio by Lankester, Beck and Bourne (4).

6. Alimentary Canal and Gastric Glands.—The alimentary canal in Scorpio, as in Limulus, is provided with a powerful suctorial pharynx, in the working of which extrinsic muscles take a part. The mouth is relatively smaller in Scorpio than in Limulus—in fact is minute, as it is in all the terrestrial Arachnida which suck the juices of either animals or plants. In both, the alimentary canal takes a straight course from the pharynx (which bends under it downwards and backwards towards the mouth in Limulus) to the anus, and is a simple, narrow, cylindrical tube (fig. 33). The only point in which the gut of Limulus resembles that of Scorpio rather than that of any of the Crustacea, is in possessing more than a single pair of ducts or lateral outgrowths connected with ramified gastric glands or gastric caeca. Limulus has two pairs of these, Scorpio as many as six pairs. The Crustacea never have more than one pair. The minute microscopic structure of the gastric glands in the two animals is practically identical. The functions of these gastric diverticula have never been carefully investigated. It is very probable that in Scorpio they do not serve merely to secrete a digestive fluid (shown in other Arthropoda to resemble the pancreatic fluid), but that they also become distended by the juices of the prey sucked in by the scorpion—as certainly must occur in the case of the simple unbranched gastric caeca of the spiders.

The most important difference which exists between the structure of Limulus and that of Scorpio is found in the hinder region of the alimentary canal. Scorpio is here provided with a single or double pair of renal excretory tubes, which have been identified by earlier authors with the Malpighian tubes of the Hexapod and Myriapod insects. Limulus is devoid of any such tubes. We shall revert to this subject below.

Fig. 26.

A, Diagram of a retinula of thecentral eye of a scorpion consistingof five retina-cells (ret),with adherent branched pigmentcells (pig).

B, Rhabdom of the same, consistingof five confluent rhabdomeres.

C, Transverse section of therhabdom of a retinula of thescorpion’s central eye, showingits five constituent rhabdomeresas rays of a star.

D, Transverse section of aretinula of the lateral eye ofLimulus, showing ten retinulacells (ret), each bearing arhabdomere (rhab).

(After Lankester.)

Fig. 27.—Diagram showingthe position of the coxal glandsof a scorpion, Buthus australis,Lin., in relation to the legs,diaphragm (entosternal flap), andthe gastric caeca.

1 to 6, The bases of the sixprosomatic limbs.

A, prosomatic gastric gland(sometimes called salivary).

B, Coxal gland.

C, Diaphragm of Newport = fibrousflap of the entosternum.

D, Mesosomatic gastric caeca(so-called liver).

E, Alimentary canal.

(From Lankester, Q. J. Mic. Sci., vol.xxiv. N.S. p. 152.)

7. Ovaries and Spermaries: Gonocoels and Gonoducts.—The scorpion is remarkable for having the specialized portion of coelom from the walls of which egg-cells or sperm-cells are developed according to sex, in the form of a simple but extensive network. It is not a pair of simple tubes, nor of dendriform tubes, but a closed network. The same fact is true of Limulus, as was shown by Owen (7) in regard to the ovary, and by Benham (14) in regard to the testis. This is a very definite and remarkable agreement, since such a reticular gonocoel is not found in Crustacea (except in the male Apus). Moreover, there is a significant agreement in the character of the spermatozoa of Limulus and Scorpio. The Crustacea are—with the exception of the Cirrhipedia—remarkable for having stiff, motionless spermatozoids. In Limulus Lankester found (15) the spermatozoa to possess active flagelliform “tails,” and to resemble very closely those of Scorpio which, as are those of most terrestrial Arthropoda, are actively motile. This is a microscopic point of agreement, but is none the less significant.

In regard to the important structures concerned with the fertilization of the egg, Limulus and Scorpio differ entirely from one another. The eggs of Limulus are fertilized in the sea after they have been laid. Scorpio, being a terrestrial animal, fertilizes by copulation. The male possesses elaborate copulatory structures of a chitinous nature, and the eggs are fertilized in the female without even quitting the place where they are formed on the wall of the reticular gonocoel. The female scorpion is viviparous, and the young are produced in a highly developed condition as fully formed scorpions.


Fig. 28.—The right coxalgland of Limulus polyphemus,Latr.

a2 to a5, Posterior borders ofthe chitinous bases of thecoxae of the second, third,fourth and fifth prosomaticlimbs.

b, Longitudinal lobe or stolonof the coxal gland.

c. Its four transverse lobes oroutgrowths correspondingto the four coxae.

(From Lankester, loc. cit., afterPackard.)