122 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



I certainly cannot regard all the subfamilies admitted by Theobald in 

 the "Genera Insectorum" as of subfamily rank. The Culicida suffer, in my 

 thinking, from the usual tendency prevailing amongst specialists who limit 

 their studies to a single family, and often have a very slight knowledge of 

 the rest of the animal kingdom. This is to very much overrate the 

 comparative value of the various distinctive characters. 



Thus two or three allied genera get split off into a subfamily, whilst 

 genera, subgenera and species are created ad infinitum, on the slenderest 

 and often inconstant characters. In support of the expressed opinion in 

 my Catalogue, that many of the new species could not hold specific rank, 

 may be noted a tendency now to speak of "Culex so-and-so and its allies," 

 which is a very convenient way of intimating the vagueness of the specific 

 limitations. — E. Brum; in, Calcutta, India, January, 1909. 



P.S. — Perhaps it may not be out of place here to incidentally record 

 my complete agreement with Prof Aldrich's views as to the inadvisability 

 of overturning so many of Meigen's later (1803) generic names for those 

 first (1800) adopted by him and subsequently discarded, and I regret 

 much to see one or two of our leading European Dipterologists accepting 

 the changed nomenclature. 



THREE NEW SPECIES OK THE GENUS BDELLA (MITES). 



BY II. I.. EWING, I UBANA, ILL. 



The genus Bdella is by far the richest in species of any of the genera 

 of the family Bdellio.k. the membersof which are especially characterized 

 by their large beak, and frequently have their palpi geniculate. The 

 members of this family of mites are predaceous, using their powerful 

 chelate mandibles for attacking their prey. Up to the present time only 

 ten species of this genus have been recorded from the United States, this 

 paper bringing the number up to thirteen known to our country. 



Key to S pixies Described. 



1. Segment 3 and 4 of palpus subequal B. corticis. 



Segment 3 much stouter than 4 2. 



2. Distal segment of palpus over twice as long as segment 4 . . B. muscorum. 

 Distal segment of palpus scarcely one and one-half times as long as 



segment 4 B. depressa. 



Bdella corticis, n. sp. (Plate vi, figs. 1, 2, 3). — Colour yellowish- 

 green, with blotches of black. 



April, 1909 



