﻿20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. lOO 



other species of starlings. There is a sHde in the U. S. National 

 Museum collection containing two females of a Menacanthus identified 

 as Menacanthus spinosus (Piaget), collected on Sturnus vulgaris at 

 Halifax, N. C, and these are exactly the same as a large series of 

 specimens from Guam taken on Aplonis opacus guamae (a starling). 

 There is not the slightest doubt that they are the same species, but 

 the National Museum slide was wrongly identified. I sent a pair of 

 these specimens to Dr. G. H. E. Hopkins, in England, for comparison 

 of Piaget's type of spiniferum, and a letter from him says: "The latter 

 {Menopon spiniferm Piaget) is a Menacanthus, and it is extremely close 

 to your species but is not the same. I did not have time to compare 

 them in great detail, but the chaetotaxy of the female genital region 

 is not the same in the two forms." The differences between the two 

 forms cannot now be given in more detail, but the following diagnosis 

 will serve, together with the figures given, to identify the new race. 



MENACANTHUS SPINIFERUS APLONIS, new subspecies 



Figure 4, c, d 



Types. — U. S. N. M. No. 58964, male and female adults, from 

 Aplonis opacus guami, collected by Rollin H. Baker on Guam Island 

 (Marianas), May 27, 1945. 



Diagnosis. — The head is short and wide, with small, rounded 

 temples and somewhat pointed front; the pro thorax is fairly large, 

 with winged sides, rounded anterior angles, rather sharply converging 

 sides, and flatly convex posterior margin. The ptero thorax is not much 

 larger than the prothorax, with the mesothorax sharply indicated at 

 the sides and with the metathorax flaring out sharply from the 

 meso thoracic sutm-e; posterior angles sharp and posterior margin 

 flatly convex. 



The abdomen is large and oval, with narrow, sharply defined, and 

 rather deeply pigmented pleurites; tergites continuous across abdomen 

 but separated from plem-ites by a narrow hyaline band; sternites also 

 continuous across abdomen, but separated from the plem-ites much 

 more broadly than are the tergites (see fig.). 



The ventral spines on the head are very distinctive, and I know of 

 no other described species in which they are so long (I have some forms 

 from South America with similar spines, which are unidentified), but 

 they are not deeply pigmented, except at their bases. The gular 

 plate is also distinctive, extending beyond the occipital margin, with 

 the sides hyaline where the hairs are set and with heavy supporting 

 arms reaching forward to the bases of the palpi. Other characteristics 

 are the many heavy spines on the abdomen. All the pleurites, from 

 I to VIII, bear on their posterior margin two to five spines, which are 

 smaller than those on the ventral surface under the pleurites and those 

 on the tergites and sternites. Tergites II to VII bear three to six 



