220 VARROA JACOHSONII. 



eveu occur that when the creature is lying on its veutral 

 side and occasionally is somewhat pressed by the covering 

 glass, the distal end of" the peritrematal shield is making 

 its appearance between legs III and IV (see fig. 1), There 

 is a wide ventrally sul]lexed marri'm of the dorsal shield all 

 around, except at the most anterior portion before coxae I 

 and before the head. The stigma is on the usual place viz. 

 between (so-called) the coxae III and IV; its unusual forward 

 situation is a result of the unusual contraction forward of 

 the legs. T\\e peritrema is CO -shaped, an unusual phenomenon 

 in Laelaptinae^ in my opinion not explicable by the con- 

 traction of the legs forward, nor by the parasitism of the 

 creature. 



Epistome (fig. 1) a free and well chitinized rounded piece. 

 Mandibles (fig. 7) very short, not reaching when wholly 

 retracted the sternal shield; chelae apparently with a bladder- 

 like rudiment of an upper jaw, without any trace of tibial 

 and tarsal sense-organs, with a normally formed lower 

 jaw, which however is not movable but firmly fixed to 

 the tibia, without any trace of former joint. This lower 

 jaw is provided with an almost vanishing apical incisor, a 

 minute second incisor, and a knob-shaped low canine tooth ; 

 no molar. Apparently these mandibles serve to pierce the 

 less chitinized parts of the skin of the bee between head 

 and thorax or between thorax and abdomen, or else, to 

 suck juices from the host. Though these mandibles have 

 no anchor-shaped fixation- apparatus like in the i.roc^2c?a6' and 

 in the genus Berlesia G. Canestrini among the Laelaptitiae, 

 yet they remember somewhat the mandibles of the latter. 



Maxillae. The first characteristic which strikes us is that 

 there are not 4 pairs of bristles on the ventral side of 

 the capitulum (fused basal pieces or coxae of the maxillae) 

 (fig. 8) but only 3 pairs, being hair IV (of the outer 

 coxal part) wanting. The second feature is that hairs I, II 

 and III do not stand in a triangle but one after the other. 

 A third character is that we in a superficial examination 

 should mean to see only well developed horns or outer 



Notes from the Leyden JMuseum, Vol. X^XIV. 



