58 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



phaga. The classificatory attempts prior to that time 

 were simply the results of conjecture. 



Grouped for a long time with the Hemiptera, because 

 the Mallophaga are, what the Pediculidas, undoubted 

 Hemiptera, are, external parasites of animals, the testi- 

 mony of the biting mouthparts finally effected their re- 

 moval to that heterogeneous group of insects, the order 

 Pseudo-Neuroptera. Here they came to be associated, 

 in all of these steps more and more nearly approximating 

 the truth, with the Termites, Psocids, Perlids and Embids, 

 these groups forming the suborder Platyptera. Dr. Brauer 

 in 1885 broke up the order Pseudo-Neuroptera, and after 

 this cataclysm our Mallophaga found themselves in com- 

 pany with the Termites and Psocids constituting the order 

 Corrodentia. Finally under the impetus thus acquired in 

 order- breaking many entomologists have gone further, 

 and in the hands of these men the Mallophaga reach the 

 standing of an independent order. The latest American 

 text-book of entomology, Comstock's Manual of Insects, 

 1895, adopts this treatment of the group. 



Whether a group of insects should be called an order 

 or a suborder or what not is largely, of course, a matter 

 of an author's attitude in matters classificatory. The 

 point manifest in all this shifting about and gradual 

 growth of ranking importance of the Mallophaga is 

 that the group is one well removed from any other group 

 of insects. The more the structure and life history of 

 the bird -lice have been studied, the more difficult it 

 has become to ally them closely with any other insects. 

 The, at first glance, apparently simple and lowly struct- 

 ure of them is discovered by study to be the result of a 

 specialization along the lines of parasitism. The sim- 

 plicity of outer habitus, lack of wings, the rather Thysan- 

 uriform appearance are not the simplicity of a general- 



