244 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Strongly inwardly oblique to inner margm, parallel to direction of t. a., but 

 not so much curved. Inner edge rigid, cleanly marked, outer shading 

 gradually into ground colour. The s. t. line is only marked by a very 

 .slight difference in shade between terminal and subterminal spaces, the 

 latter being slightly darker next the line. Fringe concolorous, slightly 

 paler at base. No trace of ordinary spots. Secondaries fuscous, darker 

 outwardly. Mesial band and discal dot evident, but very faint. Female 

 as male, only hind wings somewhat darker. Beneath, fore wings fuscous, 

 with extremely faint, if any, trace of mesial band and discal dot ; hind 

 wings paler, with band and dot only a trifle better defined. 



None of the specimens before me are perfectly fresh, and it is 

 probable that when better material is available there will be additional 

 features of maculation to be added to the above description. For 

 instance, a few white scales here and a few black ones there lead me to 

 think that in fresh specimens there would be a marginal row of dark 

 points preceded by white ones. 



Types : ^ and P, Kerrville, Texas. From Mr. Lacey. 



(To be continued.) 



THE SO-CALLED HUMAN FLEA, PULEX IRRITANS, INFEST- 

 ING THE OPOSSUM, DIDELPHIS VIRGINIANA. 



BY F. M. WEBSTER, URBANA, ILL. 



> While engaged in studying the still enigmatical insect, Platypiilla 

 castor is, along Devil's River, Texas, in the spring of 1891, an opossum 

 was treed by the dogs one evening, and shot. The following morning I 

 found the animal, which was a female, and, though herself dead, the 

 young were still alive and in the pouch of the mother. While 

 examining these I observed that the pouch also contained numbers of 

 fleas. Specimens were captured and sent to the Department of Agricul- 

 ture at Washington, I being at the time employed by the Division of 

 Entomology. It is these specimens, I presume, that were described by 

 Mr. Baker, in Canadian Entomologist, Vol. XXVII, p. 67, as Pulex 

 siniulans. In Proceedings U. S. National Museum, A'ol. XXVII , p. 379, 

 Mr. Baker states that the occurrence of this flea, which he here considers 

 a variety of P. irritans, is to be looked upon as accidental. This latter 

 statement may, ])erhaps, be true, but it is well enough to place the 

 circumstances surrounding the capture of the type specimens, and to call 

 attention to the fact that the section of Devil's River where they were 

 taken is not by any means a thickly settled one. While I know, from 

 personal experience at the time, that not, all of the fleas were infesting the 

 0|iossann, their abundance on the individuil from which they were taken, 

 and the nature of the country inhabited by her, would lead me to look 

 rather confidently for their recurrence on others of these animals, 

 es|)ecially where opossums are, if anything, thicker than humans, and fleas 

 ad infinitum. 



