62 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Feb., '06 



shagreened ; wings small, finger-shaped, reaching but little beyond the 

 middle of the abdomen. Axillae just meeting at the base of the scutel- 

 lum, the latter a little longer than wide, sub-triangular, the tip nar- 

 rowly truncate and the posterior angles microscopically dentate and 

 black. Abdomen slightly longer than the head and thorax, oval, at the 

 sides of the second segment with a small black tubercle which bears two 

 long black setae. Legs rather slender. 



Female. — Length 1.2-1.3 mm. This sex differs by its smaller head, 

 the eyes being much closer together on the front, and the lateral ocelli 

 nearer to the eye margin. The mandibles are stouter, distinctly biden- 

 tate, and the antennae are wholly black except the upper part of the 

 scape. The flagellum is sub-cylindrical, but little flattened, nearly one 

 and one-half times as long as the scape ; the joints wider than long, the 

 last pointed and twice as long as the penultimate. The legs are darker 

 especially the middle tibiae. 



Described from one male and three female specimens col- 

 lected at Austin, Texas, during May, 1900. 



A. xerophila is related to A. neomexicana Ashm., but differs 

 by its much shorter scape. 



The species was fairly abundant on an arid hill -slope near 

 Austin at the time the types were collected. They were mov- 

 ing actively about in the bright sunshine on the bare parched 

 soil, where other insects were very scarce. Associated with 

 them was found the closely related He?iicopygus subaptertis 

 Ashm. 



A Gigantic New Biting Bird-Louse, 



By Vernon I,. Kellogg, Stanford University, Calif. 

 Gigantic is a relative term ; a gigantic new vulture would 

 mean several linear feet of bird, but a gigantic new Mallophagan 

 found on a vulture means but several linear millimeters of insect. 

 As in the fifteen' hundred or more species of Mallophaga so 

 far known the average or modal length is hardly two millimeters, 

 a species measuring nearly eleven millimeters is truly a giant 

 among its fellows. In 1903 Mr. Charles P. L,ounsbury, govern- 

 ment entomologist of the Cape of Good Hope, took half a doz- 

 en specimens, which " appeared to be all of the creatures pres- 

 ent on the body of the host," of a very large biting bird-louse 

 from a GriffonVulture,6^>.? kolbi, shot at Nelspruit in the East- 

 ern Transvaal. The specimens represent a species hitherto un- 



