303 

 29. Thrombidium tinctoriuni (L.). 



(With Plate X, fig. 43—48). 



»La moiudre figure de caractères vaut taieux qu'uue description 

 de trois pages". Thus Trouessart in Annales de la Société JEnto- 

 mologique de France; Buil. Entom. ; Séance du 14 Nov. 1894, p. 

 CCXLVII, when criticisiug Hugo Zimmermann's paper on some 

 Sarcoptidae Avicolae. 



Meanwhile it is quite insufficiënt to give one single figure of 

 the end of a leg of Thrombidium tinctorium (L.), as will be seen 

 below. How many large Thrombidiums will still be discovered with 

 the character (tarsus shorter than tibia 1) drawn by Prof. Trouessart? 



Prof. Trouessart says he has examined sundry specimens of 

 different tropical regions. Yet he seems not to have observed the 

 enormous differences in length of the legs in different specimens, 

 even of the same locality. 



In my figure 43 you contemplate a »longlegged" form, with 

 almost yellow legs, with brownish streak on the dorsal side of 

 the joints of the legs, and brownish hairs on the distal ends of 

 these joints. If we compare these particulars with those given by 

 C. L. Koch of his Thrombidium Jlavipes (Uebers. d. Arachn. syst. 

 v. 3, p. 45, tab. 8, fig. 39), we must admit this his »unique 

 specimen, caught in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux" and hitherto 

 not refound by French entomologists, was nothing but a long- 

 and yellow-legged individual of Thrombidium tinctorium (L.), most 

 probably brought in Bordeaux by the navigation from tropical 

 regions, and strayed in the environs of the sea-port town. There- 

 fore I consider Koch's Thrombidium Jlavipes synonym to Thrombi- 

 dium tinctorium (L.). 



Trouessart does not say anything of the furrows on the ani- 

 mal's dorsal side. These are characteristic enough (Fig. 43). In the 

 foremost third part three longitudinal furrows, united posteriorly by 

 an almost transverse furrow ; this is bowed somewhat forward ; the 

 outer of the three above mentioned furrows extend farther back- 

 ward over the middle third part of the abdomen, but these their 



