36 Mr. A. D. Michael on 



claw. Perty's species, judging from the drawings made by 

 him and published by Clapar^de in 1868, had the ordinary 

 genital and anal plates of HopJophora, and no specimen of 

 the Hoplophorinse has ever been found by anyone else, that I 

 am aware of, having the tridactyle claw and the ordinary 

 genital and anal plates of Uoplophora. Perty, in defining 

 his genus, includes two important characters which do not 

 exist in any known species of Oribatidte, viz., six-jointed 

 legs and a sucking- mouth. Therefore if we adopt the genus 

 FIitMracarus we adopt one founded upon erroneous anatomy, 

 and of which there is not any known species. Claparbde 

 is probably right in supposing that Perty made mistakes 

 about the tridactyle claw and in other matters: his species 

 was probably Hophphora dasypus (Dug^s), an earlier 

 species, misdescribed — it is therefore scarcely a satisfactory 

 type for a family ; and if we be forced to abandon the well- 

 known name of Hophphora^ for which there are very strong 

 arguments, but which every one is unwilling to do, it will 

 be unfortunate. 



Then Dr. Oudemans says that the genus " Notaspis " 

 cannot stand because Hermann's name in 1804 is equivalent 

 to Latreille's earlier name Orihata (or Orihates) : but it is 

 not certain that they quite covered the same ground ; both 

 were very large groups, practically intended to include what 

 we now call the family, and they have been much subdivided. 

 Latreille's group has been raised to a family, and his generic 

 name preserved for one genus ; but Hermann knew of many 

 creatures not known to Latreille, and Nicolet is, I think, to be 

 commended for preserving Hermann's name for a portion of 

 these creatures contained in his group, taking the well-known 

 Kotasjjis lipilis as his type. 



Dr. Oudemans then states that Oppi'a, Koch, is founded on 



Opp)ict, (jiaucina, Koch, a larval form, as a type. It is a 



larval form ; but why is it Koch's type ? Koch gives 5 



species, of which 4 are adult ; in his * Uebersicht,' where he 



first describes the genus, he puts 0. nitens at the head of his 



description and figures tliat species only. It is true that he 



used the name " (Oppi'a " earlier, in his ' Deutschlands Crus- 



taceen &c.,^ without defining the genus : that book was 



published in fasciculi of loose sheets; both species were in 



the same fasciculus ; the plate of 0. glaucina was numbered 



9, that of 0. nitens 10 ; but is this to make the larval form 



the type ? I do not think that the genus Oppia should 



stand, but that is because it is a part of the genus Notaspis 



as limited by Nicolet, and is ill-defined, other members of the 



same natural genus being spread by Koch over several 



genera mixed with quite diflferent creatures. 



