149 



s-pecies — narheli^ which was described by one specimen (^ , is per- 

 haps only a variety of the talpae. H. tripectinata is also described 

 only by one specimen çf^ H. americana by one specimen Q and H. 

 dippiei by one specimen çf and one Q. Only H. talpae Curt, is in 

 some places often er to be found, but this species must be also refered 

 to as to a rare specimen. I was able to examine the receptaculum 

 seminis only by this last species, which lives mostly in the nests of 

 moles. I think it possible that all Hystrichopsylla have a pair of re- 

 ceptacula seminis. 



The receptaculum seminis was first more or less rightly de- 

 scribed by Karsten in Sarcopsylla pene- 

 trans Ij.^ and especially by Landois[in 

 Pulex caiiis Dug. 2. Later, in the description 

 of Sarcopsylla 'penetrans L. 3, Bonnet 

 roughly counted it for an ovary (!). After 

 all the receptaculum seminis of the 

 genus Ceratopsyllus was rather unpunct- 

 ually figured by Rothschild; he calls 

 it »the brown abdominal gland «*. That, 

 as I know, exhausts all the references on 

 the receptaculum seminis of the fleas. Keceptacula seminis of Hy- 



rrn i r> t i • • i , ^ .^^^ stHchopSi/Ua talpae Cuxt. 



ihe work 01 Landois is to be counted till '^ 



now for a ground-work. 



Each receptaculum seminis from H. talpae Curt, is like by its 

 form to the only one receptaculum of other Pulicidae; it is plainly 

 seen from the comparison of my drawing with Landois's plates. As 

 Landois says, the inferior (distal) globe-shaped division of the recep- 

 taculum in Pulex cams opens immediatly in the interior end of the duct 

 of one accessory gland (»Kittdrüsen»); so, one of the accessory glands 

 ends blindly, while the other prolongs itself to the receptaculum 

 seminis. In Hystrichopsylla talpae Curt, each of the receptacula 

 prolongs in its own duct. Both the ducts make a noose and join in a 

 general duct. A thick, yellow-brown chitinous intima makes the 

 receptacula very well seen. By some species of fleas this intima is nearly 

 black, while others have it lighter. The chitinous cuticula in the su- 

 perior (proximal) division is thinner and lighter. This division bears 



1 Karsten, Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Bhytichoprion penetrans , Bullet, d. 

 Soc. Imper. des Natur, à Moscou. 1864. p. 149. Taf. II, f. 12. 



2 L. Landois, Anatomie des Hundeflohes [Pulex canis Tinges), Dresden, 1866. 

 S. 37. Taf. IV, Fig. 7. 



ä Bonnet, Mémoire sur la puce pénétrante. Paris, 1867. p. 32, f. 19. 

 * Rothschild, Notes on Pulex avium Tasch. Novität. Zoologicae, Vol. VII. 

 1900. p. 541, pi. 9, f. 19 and 20. 



