58 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 28 



no further distinctions. The absence of the larger pits may indeed 

 prove to be a valid character for establishing G. spinulosa as a true 

 species. However, the secondary scutal pits of G. fletcheri are often 

 very difficult to see, and at times show up only in freshly mounted 

 specimens. All the Burma specimens, as well as those from Malaya, 

 possessed pits the size of setal pores, in addition to punctae, and hence 

 could not be G. spinulosa. (Such pits were always absent in the re- 

 lated G. darita, new species, which is also separable on other grounds.) 

 For these reasons G. spinulosa is considered a synonym of G. fletcheri. 



Gater, at the time of the original description, listed the following 

 hosts, all from Selangor during the months March through November, 

 1929: Rattus rattus diardi {=Rattus rattus argentiventer, at least in 

 part) at Kuala Lumpur ; "Rattus sabanus vociferans Miller," "Sciurus 

 caniceps concolor Blyth" ( = Callosciiirus) , Tupaia glis ferruginea 

 and Rhinosciurus tupaioides laticaudatus (Blyth) (as tupaiodes, sic!) 

 at Sungei Buloh. The U. S. Army Medical Research Unit's records 

 are as follows : In the primary forest of Ulu Langat, 20 miles east of 

 Kuala Lumpur, 14 specimens ex 4 Rattus sabanus (Thomas). In the 

 primary forest of Ulu Gombak, 16 miles north of Kuala Lumpur, 24 

 specimens ex one Rattus canus malaisia Kloss, i from Rattus mUlleri 

 (Jentink), and i from Tupaia minor Gunther. In the scrub terrain 

 of Sungei Way, 8 miles southwest of Kuala Lumpur, 13 ex a single 

 Rattus exidans concolor (Blyth) and 2 from Rattus rattus argenti- 

 venter (Robinson and Kloss). The Colonial Office Medical Research 

 Unit has records as follows: i ex Rattus bozvcrsi (Anderson) and 3 

 ex Tupaia glis (Diard) at Ulu Langat. G. fletcheri was therefore 

 collected on a variety of small mammals in Malaya in both primary 

 forest and secondary vegetation. Both Gater's and our records indi- 

 cate no seasonal preference, for it was found during rainy months 

 as well as during the short relatively dry spells. 



Gahrliepia (G.) fletcheri was collected by the U. S. A. Typhus 

 Commission in Assam and North Burma on only 63 occasions out of a 

 total of 1,400 mammals and 260 birds examined in the period Decem- 

 ber 1944 to December 1945. In all, 249 specimens were collected. As 

 a rule G. fletcheri constituted from 5 to 20 percent of the chiggers 

 examined in these instances, but rarely as many as 40 to 50 percent 

 of the chiggers on a shrew belonged to this species. The hosts and 

 general locality distribution are listed in table i. 



Approximately one-fourth of the hosts were captured in true pri- 

 mary forest and the remainder in secondary or scrub growth. Almost 

 one-third, i.e.. 19, of the mammals carrying G. fletcheri were collected 

 in the dry season, but 16 of the hosts were taken during the height 



