NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXI. 1014. 219 



ON THE POSITION OF NOTIOFSYLLA Noir. Nov., A 

 GENUS OF SIPHONAFTEBA. 



By K. JORDAN, Ph.D., and tfie Hon. N. CHARLES ROTHSCHILD, M.A. 



(3 text-figuves.) 



MR. ROBERT CUSHMAN MURPHY, of the Central Museum, Brooklyn, 

 has sent us for identification a pair of a flea which he obtained during 

 " the South Georgia Expedition of the Brooklyn Institute Museum and the 

 American Museum of Natural History." The species proves to be that known 

 as Goniopsyllus liergueloisis. 



The name Goniop.vjlliis Baker (1906), however, cannot be employed, being 

 preoccupied by Qoniops;/lliis Brady (1883), a genus of Crusfcwea. We therefore 

 replace it by Notiopsj/Ua nom. uov., with henjiicletiais Tascherib. (1880) as type. 



Dealing with this Siphonapteron in Parasitologij i. p. 92 (1908), we stated 

 that the genus was most nearly related to IL/strichopsijlla and Macropsylla, and 

 expressed the opinion that the female possibly had two receptacula seminis, as 

 in the genera mentioned. The good state of jjreservation of the two specimens 

 kindly presented by Mr. Murphy enables us to correct these statements, and to 

 give a description and some figures supplementing those already existing. 



Notiopsylla is a very near ally of the genus Pi/ffiops>/lla Roths. (1906), 

 which is only known from the Eastern Hemisphere, being most abundantly 

 represented iu Australia, but also occurring in India and Africa. We have as 

 yet no Pt/giopsi/lla from South America. But the discovery of Goniopujllus 

 kerguelensis on South Georgia renders it probable that this species, or other 

 equally close allies of PygiopsijUa, occur on sea-birds in Southern Patagonia and 

 the neighbouring islands. 



X. kerqueleiisis resembles iu facies the larger species of Pijgiopsijlla, being 

 very hairy, and has all the main characteristics of Pyy;o/>sy^^a, but entirely lacks 

 the pronotal comb. This deficiency is very interesting, as most species of 

 Pijgiopsgll.it, like all the species of the allied genus Gcratophgllus, have a well- 

 developed comb on the pronotum, but in Pijgiopsglla echidnae this comli is 

 reduced to a few spines. Its total absence in Notiopsglla, therefore, is a final 

 stage in the phyletic development of that organ. We have a parallel case in 

 the subfamily Pulicinae. The pronotal comb is normal in size in Ctenocephalus, 

 but reduced to a few teeth in the nearly allied genus An/taeopsgUa, while in Pidex 

 irritans no trace of the comb is left. 



The absence of a frontal tubercle, the position and reduction of the eye, the 

 antennal groove closed in the female and almost closed in the male, the elongate 

 abdominal stigmata, the two autepygidial bristles on each side, the very strongly 

 projecting pygidium, the presence of a j)atch of dispersed thin hairs on the inner 

 surface of the hindcoxa, the five pairs of plantar bristles on the fifth tarsal 

 segment, etc., are all characteristics which Notiopsglla shares with Pygiojisglla, 

 the former being a PggiopsgUa without pronotal comb. It was the shape of the 

 ninth abdominal sternite of the male which misled us to think that there was 

 a close affinity between Notiopsglla and llgstrichopsglla. But a somewhat similar 



