528 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Menopon robustum n. sp. (Plate lxxii, fig. 3.) 



A single specimen found on a Least Bush Tit, Psaltri- 

 parus minimus (Palo Alto, Calif.). No other specimens 

 of this strange species were found on five other individ- 

 uals of the same bird species examined. I refer the 

 species to the genus Menopon, for it is evidently more 

 closely allied to this genus than to any other one so far 

 established. But it presents a mingling of characters of 

 Menopon, Ancistrona and Eureum; a short broad head 

 with strongly chitinized backward-projecting processes 

 on the ventral surface like Ancistrona- a thorax like 

 Eur cum, and the habitus and general body characters of 

 Menopon. If it is to be referred to Menopon it ranks 

 with titan and tridens as anomalous members of the 

 genus, which should be distinguished by subgeneric 

 names, or which should be the provocation for breaking 

 up the already unwieldy genus into several genera. In 

 general shape it resembles M. subrotunduni, Piaget (Les 

 Pediculines, p. 453, pi. xxxv, fig. 2), from Gracula sul- 

 ci roslr is. 



Description of the female. Body, length 1.43 mm., 

 width .85 mm.; being thus very broad and short; smoky 

 translucent brown, with broad, transverse, abdominal 

 bands, darker on the lateral margins; head with no well 

 defined bands or blotches except the small ocular flecks; 

 labial projections of under side showing through ; head 

 with very long hairs. 



Head, length .25 mm., width .6 mm.; very broad and 

 short, crescentic, with narrow rounded ends; front with 

 one very short hair on each side of middle, then two 

 short ones and then three long hairs, the hindmost two 

 being in the lateral angle just in front of the ocular 

 emargination ; palpi short, not reaching the margin; the 

 emargination small but distinct, with the eye large, nearly 



