﻿2 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. lOo 



funebris (Nitzsch), but the species of this group are very difficult to 

 separate. 



The differences separating Rallicola, Parricola, and Aptericola are 

 admittedly small; yet there are now placed in Rallicola species that 

 differ, inter se, as much perhaps as do the above-named genera, 

 although it may be questioned whether these differences are generic. 

 Another genus very close to Rallicola and Parricola is Furnaricola, 

 found on the avian families Furnariidae, Dendrocolaptidae, and pos- 

 sibly the Formicariidae. It seems to be a composite oiPenenirmus and 

 Rallicola, with head clearly similar in some cases to the former and with 

 the male genitalia and chaetotaxy of segment VIII in the female very 

 close to the latter. Just how this development has come about is 

 impossible to explain, since the host families are definitely very far 

 apart. 



Another species that superficially resembles Rallicola (as now de- 

 fined) is Oncophorus unguiculatus Piaget, and it has been placed 

 tentatively in that genus by Hopkins and Clay, but I think wrongly. 

 Its host is supposed to be Eurylaemus ochromelus, from the Malay 

 Peninsula and the East Indies and belongs to a family very far 

 from the rails and kindred birds. The type species of the new genus 

 here proposed has a strildng resemblance to 0. unguiculatus Piaget, 

 as will be seen by comparing the figures of the two, which are, I am 

 sure, congeneric. It may even come to light in the future that the 

 alleged host of 0. unguiculatus was cited in error and that its true 

 host is some species of Corvidae, closely related to Corvus. 



Diagnosis of genus Corvicola. — Medium-sized, with large, deeply 

 pigmented head, thoracic and abdominal markings, more or less 

 "nirmoid" form of head and body, the male equal in size to or larger 

 than the female. 



The head is suggestive of some types of Briielia, except that the 

 antennae are very strongly dimorphic. In the male the first segment 

 of the antenna is thick and long, equal in length to the remaining 

 four segments, and has on the under side a well-developed tubercle 

 bearing a spine; the second is half the length of first, while the third 

 is very short and produced inwardly into a long, strong hook; the 

 fourth and fifth are minute. In the female the antennae are quite 

 normal, with the first two segments equal in length and the last three 

 shorter. 



The head has the preantennary region uniformly rounded, with no 

 trace of clypeal suture and mth the clypeal bands widely separated 

 anteriorly by a large clear area, which contains a small, quadrangular, 

 faintly pigmented signature. The internal clypeal bands are fused 

 with the marginal bands at then* anterior ends, then run backward 

 along the sides of the clypeal signature, and then circle outward 

 and around to the anterior mandibular condyle. Faintly pigmented 



