194 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [May, '14 



utterly unrecognizable from this description. The taking of 

 two score specimens of Mallophaga last January and June 

 (1913) by Dr. C. H. T. Townsend, government entomologist 

 of Peru, from three vizcachas shot at Ninahuanchi, Peru (alt. 

 13,000 ft.), and one shot at Cerro Picuna, Peru (alt. 8,000 

 ft.), allows us to make some definite records of the ectopara- 

 sites of this interesting rodent. 



The specimens from the vizcachas kindly sent us by Dr. 

 Townsend represent several Mallophagan species, of which 

 two, both new (in the face of the impossibility of recognizing 

 Gay's vizcachan .Gyro pus) are undoubtedly peculiar to the 

 vizcacha. For one of these species it is necessary to establish 

 a new genus. In addition, the material, credited to the viz- 

 cacha, included two additional species, undoubtedly abnormal 

 stragglers (in game bag or on the skinning table), one of them 

 being the common Lipeurus bacillus of doves, and the other a 

 Goniodes which may have straggled either from doves or 

 pheasants. Dr. Townsend writes us that his Indian collectors 

 do frequently kill doves on their collecting trips f and that, 

 despite his careful instructions, they may well allow their 

 specimens to become too neighborly with each other in the 

 game bag. 



Of the two new species, one is a Gyro pus, while the other, 

 as said, plainly represents a new genus, a two-clawed form 

 the typical mammal-infesting Mallophaga are one-clawed of 

 a general appearance rather like that of Menopon or Trinoton 

 (both bird-infesting genera). Although, as just suggested, 

 most of the mammal-infesting Mallophaga are one-clawed 

 species, belonging to the two genera Gyropus and Trichodectes 

 (to this latter single genus belongs a considerable majority of 

 all Mallophagan species so far recorded from mammals) a few 

 two-clawed species, representing three of four genera, have 

 been taken from mammals. Especially are these two-clawed 

 species found on marsupials. Also, for almost each of these 

 species a new genus has had to be established. These two 

 special conditions of their occurrence give them a particular 

 interest to students of Mallophaga. 



