APPENDIX IV. 



DESCRIPTION OF THREE NEW SPECIES OF SIPHONAPTERA 

 OBTAINED BY CAPT. H. E. M. DOUGLAS, V.C, D.S.O., R.A.M.C, ON THE CLARK EXPEDITION IN 



NORTH CHINA 



BY THE HON. N. CHARLES ROTHSCHILD, M.A. F.L.S. 



TTHE collection of fleas contains three species, which all prove to be new. 

 The most interesting of them is the one found on a roedeer. Its nearest 

 ally is a flea which occurs in Turkestan on horses, cattle, etc., and does a 

 great deal of damage. The types of the species are in the British Museum. 



I. Ceratophyllus subcaecatus spec. nov. (Fig. i and 2). 



^ $ The chief peculiarities of this species are the non-pigmented eye 

 and the large eighth abdominal sternite of the S^ , which characters remove 

 the species from true Ceratophyllus. There is, however, in that genus another 

 species, C. silantiewi Wagner (1898), which is closely related to subcaecatus, 

 although abundantly distinct. This C. silantiewi has the eye non-pigmented 

 in the centre and its clasper is very similar to that of C. subcaecatus, the 

 eighth sternite being small. The two species, however, may easily be 

 distinguished by the shorter rostrum of subcaecatus, the pointed genal lobe, the 

 very short bristles of the second segment of the antennae in both sexes (these 

 bristles being long in the ? of silantiewi), the smaller number of bristles on 

 the abdomen and by other characters as well. 



Head. — Frons vertical from the tubercle downward, the latter a little 

 nearer to the central sensory organ (pale dot) than to the oral corner. Eye 

 round, very feebly pigmented, excepting the anterior and postero-inferior 

 edges, at a certain focus appearing excised. A row of three large bristles 

 before the eye, the central one slightly nearer to the lowest, in between these 

 bristles some minute hairs, and in front of the row another row of three, the 

 uppermost of which is placed close to the antennal groove in the ^ , and is 

 absent in the $ . Genal lobe more or less pointed. The occiput has one 

 large bristle above the antennal groove before the centre, and a subapical row 

 of 6 on each side, of which only the most ventral one is large. Along the 



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