104 ON SOME COMMON SPECIES 



inside the man's head, but that, of course, is highly improbable. 

 Canestrini, who a few years ago pubhshed a monograph on the 

 Italian Gamasi, says that this is the nymph of another Gamasid — 

 Holotaspis marghiatus. He descril^es sixteen species of Gamasus 

 and eight species of Uropoda. 



It is now a generally-received opinion that all the Gamasids 

 found attached to insects are either nymphs or young females. 

 Mr. A. D. Michael, in a paper read before the Linnean Society, 

 says that he caught the creatures while wandering about, and then 

 bred them in confinement through several generations ; and that 

 those he bred were, in their nymphal state, precisely similar to 

 those found on beetles. He does not, however, appear to have 

 bred any from specimens actually caught on a beetle. On April 

 the 14th, he found two nymphs wandering about, which he con- 

 fined in a cell ; on the 27th, both cast their skins, one turning out 

 to be a male and the other a female. He kept them together, 

 and on May 7th the latter laid eggs, which hatched about May 

 15th, and three days later the young larvae turned to nymphs, and 

 on May 27th again shed their skins and became adult. This 

 allowed exactly one month for a generation, and I trusted I should 

 have been able to confirm his experience ; but hitherto I have 

 been disappointed, for I have kept about twenty individuals for 

 nearly three months (time enough for three generations) without 

 any change whatever, except that in some the bodies became more 

 distended, possibly from being stall-fed, so to speak, instead of 

 having to hunt for their living, and some few died. But there 

 was no further change — not even a change of skin. So I have 

 been unable to give in this paper any account of either eggs, 

 larvae, males, or females. Mr. Michael was so certain that the 

 nymphs he bred were identical with those found on beetles, that I 

 can only suppose that I chose a bad time of year for my experi- 

 ments, and should not have expected to rear large and prosperous 

 families in the winter ; for, according to Tennyson, 



" In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast ; 



In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest ; 



In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove ; 



In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." 

 And the above is probably true, even of the little blind 

 Gamasus. 



