29 



On Glyciphagus palmifer. 



By A. D. Michael, F.R.M.S. 



(Bead 25th January, 1878.) 



Plate III. 



During the Christmas time which has just passed I went for a 

 visit of a few days to some friends living in a small agricultural 

 village in Warwickshire, a few miles from Tamworth, and, the 

 weather being too bad to venture out, it struck me that I might as 

 well see what objects of microscopic interest I could find in the 

 house ; with this view I descended into the beer cellar with a 

 plate of glass and a camel's-hair brush, and gently brushed a 

 small part of the wall on to the glass ; the result, on examining 

 the sweepings, was that I found a good number of living specimens 

 of Glyciphagus palmifer, and as this most beautiful and extraor- 

 dinary mite has not hitherto been found in this country, as far as 

 I can ascertain, I have thought that it might be of sufficient 

 interest to exhibit to you to-night ; and I have been asked to 

 describe it. Before doing so, however, I wish to say that the sub- 

 ject has been most admirably and exhaustively treated by MM. 

 Robin and Fumose in " Robin's Journal pour l'Anatomie et Physio- 

 logic " for 1868, and those gentlemen have left little that is new 

 for any one else to add ; the work, however, is difficult of access in 

 this country. There is also a short notice of the species in Mr. 

 Andrew Murray's late work on the Aptera, with a drawing very 

 well copied from Robin and Fumose's figure by Mr. Whymper ; which 

 drawing, however, being somewhat highly shaded, scarcely gives as 

 correct an idea of this white and transparent creature as the 

 original, more diagramatic, figure. 



Mr. Murray anticipates in his article that as G. palmifer is found 

 both in France and Germany, it may possibly also be found in the 

 southern parts of this country if properly sought for. I do not, 

 however, myself consider that the mite is finally established as indi- 

 genous here by my capture — in the first place because so ?ery minute 



