300 Annals of the South African Museum. 



will be included in this group, which is imperfectly understood. In 

 general build Eurymetopns recalls now Docophorus, now Lipeurus, 

 and again Giebelia. But the anchor-shaped genital apparatus of the 

 male is unique, so far as we know, in the order. The specific charac- 

 ters of the group are apparently to be found (a) in the dimensions, 

 (b) in the chaetotaxy of special regions, (c) in the 9th segment $ , 

 (d) in the genital apparatus of the $ . This apparatus consists 

 essentially of two main pieces : (1) the usual basal plate, (2) a solid 

 portion which is near the junction with the basal plate broad, there- 

 after contracting into a neck and expending terminally into an 

 anchor or arrow-shaped head. Through the middle of this free 

 solid piece from base to tip or near it runs the seminal channel. 

 Under a moderate power the surface of this arrow-like head and 

 part of the expanded base appear to be striated or set with minute 

 papilliB. Under an oil immersion these streaks resolve themselves 

 into minute sensory channels circular in bore and slightly wider near 

 the surface where each is connected with a minute bristle. The 

 function of these sensory hairs is probably directive. 



The whole apparatus is heavily chitinized. On the ventral surface 

 there is placed basally a re-curved almost solid chitinous appendage. 

 The homology of this apparatus is perplexing. Mjoberg (p. 248) 

 regards the inferior appendage as the true penis, and takes the solid 

 part lying in the genital chamber to be the fused paramera. 

 He rejects Snodgrass's view (New Mallophaga, iii. p. 188, pi. xiv. 

 fig. 5, pi. xv. fig. 1, 1899) that the terminal portion of the apparatus 

 is the true "penis." As regards the first contention, the inferior 

 appendage may be homologically the penis though we know no 

 evidence for this, bat it is practically solid and exhibits no aperture 

 that we can discover. The functional penis, as Snodgrass has already 

 shown, is the free portion of the apparatus with its anchor-shaped 

 head, whose lumen is directly continuous with the ductus ejacula- 

 torius. We do not think that any portion of this entrant body 

 should be homologized with the normal Philopterid paramera. It is 

 equivalent, apparently, with what we have called the mesosome. True 

 paramera are apparently absent, though traces of them remain in a 

 notch on each side of the mesosome near the base. These notches 

 we interpret as indications of the former articulation of the paramera 

 there, and they have persisted when the paramera themselves become 

 obsolete, because they facilitated the upturning of the apparatus 

 in the preliminary stages of copulation. The function of the para- 

 mera seems to be to find and elevate the lip-like 2 valvule. This 

 work is now probably performed by the greatly strengthened meso- 



