I HAVE been unable to ascertain so much as I could wish con- 

 cerning these extraordinary insects, from the minuteness ot 

 the specimens which my friend Mr. Jenyns kindly submitted 

 to my inspection. Having been led to draw conclusions rather 

 at variance with the ideas of Colonel Montague and Dr. Leach, 

 I shall proceed to state them. The former gentleman, whose 

 interesting Paper in the Linnean Transactions well deserves 

 to be perused, supposed that the Nycteribia must turn on its 

 back to apply the mouth to the skin of the bat ; but the head 

 appears to me to be so articulated that it can, I suspect, porrect 

 it, or even bend it down, and the rostrum can most likely be 

 raised to a considerable angle from the head. I will not how- 

 ever insist further upon this point, never having seen the ani- 

 mal alive, and especially as there is an analogous instance in 

 the true Cimex, and probably in all the others with long la- 

 biums. I have observed that the C. lectularius does not (and 

 I believe cannot) insert its rostrum into the object it stands upon, 

 for it erects its trophi above the head so as to form a right 

 angle with the back. 



Dr. Leach was no doubt mistaken in considering the coxa to 

 be the first joint of the femora, as well as in taking the basal joint 

 of the tarsi for a second joint of the tibiae; these errors how- 

 ever I do not notice because I take any pleasure in lessening 

 the merit of others, but only to guard the student against mis- 

 construction. 



The only two species of Nycteribiae known in Britain are 



1. N. Hermanni Leach, Enc. Brit. Siipp. — biarticulatum i/(?r?w. 



— Leach, Zool. Mis. 3. 55. tab. 144. mas. f em. Siwdfoot. 



— Vespertilionis Mont. Linn. Trans, v. ll.p. H. 

 It inhabits the greater and lesser Horse-shoe Bats. It is 

 larger than the following species; and 1 am inclined to think, 

 from the size of Latreille's N. Vespertilionis, and the form of 

 the thorax in the Linnasan P. Vespertilionis, that they belong 

 to this species. 



2. N. Latreillii Leach. — Curtis Brit. Ent. pi. 277. 

 Inhabits Vespertilio murinus (the Common Bat). The fol- 

 lowing memorandum was transmitted with the insects by the 

 Rev. L. Jenyns : " I cannot speak with certainty as to the spe- 

 cies of Bat to which these parasites were attached, since they 

 were found in a vessel of spirits containing several different 

 kinds of Vespertilionidse ; 1 can only say that the Bats were 

 all received from Northamptonshire." 



The plant is Conyza squarrosa (Great Flea-bane). 



