1 62 ON NEW AXD RARE BRITISH ARACHNIDA. 



tentatively determined in time past. One subject of great 

 interest contained in the present communication is afforded by 

 the list subjoined of a number of species of the Order Acaridea 

 (or, as popularly known, Mites). The species alluded to are all 

 of one family Oribatida, or Beetle-mites. They are very small, 

 many of them quite microscopic, living among moss, dead leaves, 

 decayed and decaying rubbish, and under dead bark of trees, 

 decaying wood and boards, stones, &c., and often looking like 

 minute globular shining black or brown morsels. They are 

 for the most part dull and sluggish in their movements, and are 

 easily collected, having a more or less hardened coriaceous 

 epidermis, and can be preserved well in diluted methylated 

 spirit like spiders, though for a completely satisfactory working 

 out of their structure, which is often very curious, some further 

 manipulation is necessary ; and the objects also require prepara- 

 tion in some other fluid besides, or in lieu of, spirit. I have 

 myself never been able to find time for specially working (along 

 with others of the Arachnida) at this group (nor indeed at any 

 other group of the Acaridea), though I have at times collected 

 many species. It requires someone who could give up the whole 

 of much spare time to it, and it is a work greatly needed to be 

 done, as, excepting two or three of its isolated groups, there is 

 no British naturalist, so far as I know, who has attacked or who 

 is working at the whole Order of Acarids. To recur, however, 

 for a moment to the subjoined List of Oribaiida:, this consists of 

 fifty-two species, forty-nine of which were found in September 

 last by my old friend, Mr. Cecil Warburton (M.A. Christ's 

 College, Cambridge, and " Zoologist to the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England "), in the course of a few minutes gathering 

 of moss in an old fir plantation (Morden Park, near Bloxworth). 

 No attempt at separating and collecting these little mites 

 individually on the spot is necessary. The moss is placed in a 

 tin box, and the contents can be shaken out and examined 

 indoors at leisure. Mr. Warburton has a mechanical method of 

 sifting out these little creatures from the moss, by which the 

 whole contents are revealed almost at once, thus saving a long 



