38 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Dr. J. B. Smith spoke informally concerning the Rabbit Flea, 

 giving the results of some studies recently made, stating, how 

 ever, that his remarks were of a purely preliminary character, and 

 that he was not prepared to present any formal conclusions. He 

 illustrated his remarks by a series of photographs of slide mounts 

 of the insect, and called attention to the presence of two long, 

 curved, chitinous rods in the abdomen of the male, which, while 

 apparently of use in extruding the genitalia, are so inserted that 

 it appears they cannot have this function. He further stated that 

 a study of the mouth-parts of this flea shows that the oral 

 sclerites resemble much more closely those of the Hemiptera 

 than those of the Diptera. The piercing organs, instead of being 

 articulated to the mentum, pass into the head and are inserted 

 into the sucking stomach. Dr. Smith considers that this fact 

 must have great weight in the discussion of the systematic posi 

 tion of the fleas, and is convinced that instead of forming a 

 family of the Diptera these insects constitute a separate order. 

 He is therefore in favor of reviving the order Siphonaptera. In 

 further support of this view, he stated that while the metamor 

 phoses of the fleas resemble those of the Diptera in being com 

 plete, the flea larva, as he has been informed by Mr. Pergande, 

 differs in important particulars from the normal dipterous type. 

 The communication was discussed by Messrs. Stiles, Marx, Gill, 

 and Howard. 



Dr. Stiles stated that it is a fact that all fleas leave the body of 

 an animal shortly after death. Dr. Marx stated that the piercing 

 organs of the fleas are similar in their origin to those of the ticks, 

 and that in his opinion the fact that these organs enter the head 

 gives them an additional purchase and fits them better for pierc 

 ing the tough skin of an animal. Dr. Gill endorsed Dr. Smith's 

 conclusions as to the ordinal rank of the fleas. He spoke of 

 Klatsch's classification, and considered that in general too much 

 classificatory value has been given to the metamorphoses of in 

 sects. He does not believe in dividing insects into two great 

 groups upon metamorphosis alone. He considers the morphol 

 ogy of the adult a much safer guide to a rational classification 

 than the method of transformation. As he had shown in a pre 

 vious paper before the Society, complete metamorphosis is an 

 acquired rather than a primitive character, and this fact supports 



