41 
LINCOLNSHIRE MITES. 
RHYNCHOLOPHIDA.. 
C. F. GEORGE, M.R.C.S. 
Kirton-in-Lindsey. 
Tuat these mites have been little recorded by English Acarolo- 
gists is evident from the fact that when Professor Sig Thor 
of Christiana wrote his pamphlet on Norwegian Rhyncholophida 
in 1900, he records in his bibliography the names and works 
of no fewer than twenty-one writers, and only one of them is an 
Englishman! ves. Mr. O. P. Cambridge, the learned writer on 
British Spiders. His paper on ‘ Calyptostoma Hardy’ may be 
found in ‘The Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ vol. 
16 (4th series), London, page 384. Yet these mites are by no 
means rare, even in Lincolnshire ; they are curious, and form, 
when well mounted, good and beautiful objects for the micro- 
scope. They are most frequently found under stones, or chips 
of wood, near plantations, and also in damp moss from tree 
trunks, ditches, etc. The first genus of Rhyncholophidea, Smarts, 
was founded by Latreille in 1807. The Type species was 
figured and described by ‘Hermann’ in 1804, under the name 
of Zrombidium expalpe. \t is perhaps not very common, as I 
have only one mount of this species, which I found many years 
ago. The mount is not a good one, but is sufficiently so to 
enable an arachnologist to name the species. When alive, the 
proboscis is so retracted that the animal appears to have no 
mouth organs; hence the name ‘expa/pfe.’ The pressure used 
in mounting, though not great in this instance, has been 
sufficient to show them partially; as is well shown in Mr. 
Soar’s drawing, fig. A, made from my slide. During life they 
can be protruded or retracted at the creature’s will. The mite 
is darkish red in colour, long oval in shape, and rather thickly 
covered with scales, under which the skin is seen to be marked 
with circles, or pits, having a double contour (see fig. B), from 
the centre of which spring these bent scales. This skin structure 
requires to be carefully observed, as it distinguishes this mite 
from the next species ; the eyes are also very remarkable, being 
arranged in three pairs, as shown in fig. A. Mr. Soar gives 
the measurements as 2.34 mm. long, and 1.44 broad. Fig. C. 
represents the projecting mouth organs and palpi greatly 
enlarged ; the legs were too much doubled up and distorted, 
during mounting, for them to be figured; the name of this 
mite is now Smarts expalpis Herman. The next mite of this 
1907 February I. 
