iQio] Pediculoides Noxious to Man ig 



occurring in America as recorded in the following pages. It would 

 however, be too much to say that in all of these cases Pediculoides 

 ventricosus was the species involved; but in view of the fact 

 that the Angoumois grain moth, Sitotroga cerealella, Plate III, 

 fig. 2, frequently becomes even more of a grain pest in those 

 countries than it does here in America, one cannot but suspect 

 that either the same or a closely allied species of mite is respon- 

 sible for these attacks upon man. Mr. W. D. Hunter tells me 

 that in Mexico he was warned not to allow the mites to get upon 

 the hands of himself or his associates in his attempts to artifi- 

 cially introduce them into cotton fields attacked by the weevil, 

 thus showing that its effect on man was not unknown there. 

 Quite recently the writer has been informed that precisely similar 

 effects have been experienced in New York City by men in hand- 

 ling peas from Italy, infested by Bruchus larvae, on which Pedicu- 

 loides were observed to be parasitic. 



Pediculoides ventricosus was described in 1853, ^^^d P. tritici 

 Lag.-Fos was described in 185 1. Huber** has made the former 

 species a synonym of the latter, which, if sustained would throw 

 nearly or quite all of the epidemics of dermatitis recorded to the 

 credit of the one species and this would be known as Pediculoides 

 tritici Lagreze-Fossat. 



In Zur Morphologie und Ontogenie der Acariden^ Dr. Enzio 

 Reuter cites P. ventricosus as a good species but makes no men- 

 tion of P. tritici. 



The Mite Beneficial in America. 



So far as I have been able to determine, the first published 

 record of the occurrence of this mite in America was by m^'self, 

 and was included in a paper printed in the Twelfth Report of the 

 State Entomologist of Illinois, for the year 1882, pages 150-151. 

 While assistant to State Entomologist Dr. S. A. Forbes, I was 

 directed to investigate serious injuries to stored grain by the 

 Angoumois grain moth {Sitotroga cerealella) in southern Illinois, 

 where Messrs. Halliday Bros., of Cairo, extensive growers and 

 shippers of wheat, were at that time experiencing considerable 

 trouble from the ravages of this grain moth, not only in their 

 grain elevators but also, in barges loaded with wheat to be shipped 

 by river to New Orleans and thence exported by steamer. 



8. Bibliographic der klinischen Entomologie (Hexapoden, Acaerinan.) 

 von MedRath Dr. J. Ch. Huber, Jena, 1899. 



9. Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae. Tom. XXXVI, No. 4, pp. 185 

 and 195, 1909. 



