462 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



sondern zur Ergreifung und zur Fiihrung der aufgenom- 

 menen Federtheilchen dient." All of my observation, as 

 far as it goes, tends to substantiate the belief, based on 

 the structure of the mouth-parts, that the Mallophaga 

 take all their food by biting. I have seen them biting off 

 and eating the bits of feathers, and the crop content, 

 which shows plainly through the skin of many specimens, 

 is always composed of tiny bits of feathers. 



Comparison with the Mouth-Parts of 

 Allied Insects. 



It should be of interest now to compare the mouth- 

 parts of Mallophaga with the mouth-parts of those insects 

 which have been placed in recent classifications nearest to 

 the Mallophaga. Since the breaking down of Erichson's 

 catch-all order, Pseudo-Neuroptera, the association of the 

 Mallophaga, Termitidse, Perlidoe, Embidae, and Psocidae, 

 into the order Platyptera has been, until very recently, the 

 usually accepted interpretation of the place of the Mallo- 

 phaga among insects. The most recent classifications 

 assign to the Perlids, Termites and Mallophaga ordinal 

 rank. Undoubtedly the Mallophaga are to find their 

 affinities among the members of the group Platyptera, 

 and it is, therefore, with the mouth-parts of these insects 

 that I shall attempt to compare the Mallophagous mouth- 

 parts. 



The Mouth-Parts of the Termitidse and the Per- 



lid^e. 



(Plate lxiv, figs. 1-4.) 



The Termitidse (White Ants) present a racial or gen- 

 eralized condition of the simple Orthoptero-Neuropterous 

 type of biting mouth-parts; free, strong, toothed man- 

 dibles, working meso-laterally ; maxilla? (plate lxiv, fig. 2) 



