( 176) 



and II pair t<i' concoloris. All these specimens have the long jioiuteil head oi C. frlis. 

 'Yhvfcmnh; oi' obsciiruis shows an interesting anomaly, tlie sjiinu at the apex of the 

 genal process being double on one side of the head. 



Family (ERA TOPSYLLICLAE. 



CcriiiiipstjUiduc Baker, Pror. U.S. Xal. .!/««. xxix. p. 124 (iyo5). 



The bat fleas are so diftereat in organisation from the otiier Siphonajjtera, and 

 infei- se so much alike, that we agree with Dr. Baker in treating them as a distinct 

 family. There is only one genns of bat fleas recognised at present. The first 

 valid name for this genus is Ischnojjsi/llus Westwood. Hitherto Curtis's name 

 Ccratopsi/llus — altered into Ceratopsi/lla by most authors (philologically perhaps 

 a correction, but nomenclatorially a misspelling) — has been employed instead, 

 Kolenati being usually cited as author of Ceratopsi/llus. As nobody appears to 

 have looked up the literatnre on this point, accepting without i)rotest the erroneous 

 nomenclature for the bat fleas, we quote here what Curtis wrote about Ceratopsi/llus 

 and Westwood about hchnoj/syllus in 1833, 1838, and 184U. Criticising Curtis's genus 

 Ceratoplii/llus in Ent. Mag. i. j). 359 (1833), Westwood states that Cfratfipln/lliis 

 can scarcely be considered to be well founded, the distinctions based on the antennae 

 uot holding good. And he proceeds to say, on page 3G2 : " The species, however, 

 figured by Mr. Curtis, C. elongatu.i, as well as C. tespertilionis, and probably 

 C. bifascintus and Ptth'x muscull Dng., together with a Chinese species, which has 

 been kindly presented to me by the Rev. Leonard Jenys, exhibit a general form so 

 difiereut to that of the other fleas, that I cannot help thinking them, on that account, 

 entitled to form a distinct group, for which (as the name Ceminphi/llus must 

 likewise be rejected in consequence of having been previously employed in botany) 

 the generic name Lichnopsijlbis may not be deemed inajiplicable ; the characters of 

 which 1 propose to detail in a memoir, upon which I am at present occupied, upon 

 Bat Parasites." This promised memoir was never completed, only a monograph of 

 the genus ^'ijcteribia appearing in 1835 {Trans. Zool. Soc. LoiuL). But we find a 

 more precise statement of what Ischnopsijllm was meant to stand for in Westwood's 

 Introd. Classif. Ins. ii. p. 124 (1840). There we read : 



" Obs. — Ceratopsyllus Curt. (Ceratophyllus Curt., B.E.) consists of species in 

 the type of which the antennae are inserted on each side of the head, concealed in a 

 cavity behind the eye when at rest, and as long as the head, four-jointed"; but other 

 si)ecies introduced into the genus are described by Curtis as diflering entirely in 

 this respect, hence the character derived from the antennae appears to me to be 

 merely specific. Some of the species, however (P. respertilionis and elongalus) 

 being of a much more slender general form, I have proposed for them the generic 

 name of Ischiiopsi/llus {Ent. Mag. No. 4)." 



Meanwhile (1838) Curtis had altered the original spelling of the name 

 Ceratophyllus into Ceratopsyllus ; this explains the appearance of " Ceratopsyllus 

 Curt." in the above (jnotation from Westwood's book. In volume xv. of the 

 British Entomology Curtis says,* under Errata and Addenda : t 



"Folio 417 for Ceratophyllus read Ceratopsyllus. This name, wjiidi was 

 compounded to express the peculiar structure of the horned fleas, was misprinted 



* Jiritisk Entomology xv. Indijx p. 2 (1838). 



t In a letter dated Sept. 2Gtb, lUUl, Mr. CJ. A. Verrall drew my alteiitiou lo Ibis note.— N. C. li. 



