Note on Proscorpius osborni Whitfield
Plate 88
Palaeophonus osborni Whitfield. 1885. Science, 6: 87, 88, fig.
Proscorpius osborni Whitfield. 1885. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. Bul. 1: 187, pl. 20
Proscorpius osborni Scudder. 1885. Zittel's Handbuch der Palaeontologie, 1 Abth., 2 Bd., p. 739, fig. 915a.
Proscorpius osborni Thorell. 1886. American Naturalist, 20: 269
Proscorpius osborni Whitfield. 1886. Science, 7: 216
Proscorpius osborni Scudder. 1886. U.S. Geol. Surv. Bul. 31: 28
Proscorpius osborni Laurie. Royal Soc. Edinburgh Trans. 1899. 39:557, pl. 3
Proscorpius osborni Pocock. 1901. Quart. Jour. Micr. Sci., ser. 2, 44: 309
Proscorpius osborni Fritsch. Palaeozoische Arachniden, 1904. p. 65, 78, fig. 81
Proscorpius osborni Fritsch. Miscel. Pal. I. Palaeozoica, 1907, p. 6, pl. 3
In addition to its eurypterids the Bertie waterlime of New York has furnished a specimen of a scorpion which represents one of the four species of Siluric scorpions now known. As it is not only associated with the eurypterid fauna, but also related to it structurally, we have thought it well to include the following note on this unique fossil, especially as it has been the object of much debate.
This scorpion was discovered in 1882 by Mr A. O. Osborn in the waterlime of Waterville, Oneida co., N. Y. Although found before the three European species, the discovery was not announced until 1885, shortly after the news of the discoveries of the Swedish and Scottish Siluric scorpions had aroused the interest of paleontologists. Professor Whitfield, to whom the specimen had been sent by Mr Osborn, first gave a brief description and figure of it in Science and in the same year produced a more elaborate description with figures in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.
In the first paper the scorpion was referred to Palaeophonus (the genus to which the other Siluric forms belong), but in the later publication a new genus, Proscorpius, was proposed for it, mainly from the supposed presence of double claws on the walking legs. Scudder [Zittel's Handbuch der
