366 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1053 



ants or the pigeons, and close to that of the 

 rails. But the hoatzin also shows certain 

 affinities with -the plantain-eaters (Musophag- 

 idfe) and even, as Beehe points out, with, the 

 primitive lizard-tailed bird of the Upper 

 Jiu-assic slates of Bavaria, the famous 

 Archwopteryx. 



In 1909 I had the welcome opportunity of 

 examining a number of Mallophaga taken by 

 Mr. 0. William Beebe, curator of birds in the 

 New York Zoological Park, from a hoatzin in 

 Venezuela (its native land). I hoped these 

 parasites might aiford some clue to their 

 strange host's genetic relationship, in that, if 

 the Mallophaga proved to be kinds oharaoter- 

 istic of pheasants, or, indeed, of any other 

 group of birds, this fact might be advisedly 

 taken into account by the systematic ornithol- 

 ogists. For it is quite certain that in many 

 cases the host distribution of the Mallo- 

 phagan parasites of birds is determined pri- 

 marily by the genetic relationships of their 

 hosts. 



The Mallophaga of the hoatzin, represent- 

 ing three species of the parasites, did indeed 

 prove to be characteristic — ^but, unfortunately, 

 characteristic of the hoatzin! Two were new 

 species, one a Lipeurus and one a Golpoceph- 

 alum, belonging not at all to pheasant-infest- 

 ing groups of Lipeurus or ColpocepJudum 

 species. Indeed the hoatzin's Lipeurus mani- 

 festly belongs to a group whose other mem- 

 bers infest exclusively maritime birds, while 

 the Colpocephalum also shows a likeness to 

 two other species of the genus taken from 

 maritime birds, although it is also rather like 

 a third species described from a francolin 

 (African partridge). The third species, a 

 Ooniocotes, is also recorded only from the 

 hoatzin — Nitzsch found it on the bird fifty 

 years ago — ^but it is of a genus which is other- 

 wise almost restricted to pheasants. To this 

 extent, and this only, did the parasites of the 

 hoatzin as recorded by me in 1910^ offer any 

 suggestions as to the taxonomi'c position of 

 the host. 



I have recently had the opportunity of exam- 

 ining a fourth Mallophagan species from the 



1 Zoologiea, Vol. I., pp. 117-21, Figs. 38 and 39. 



hoatzin. In a collection of Mallophaga miscel- 

 laneously taken by Eobert Cushman Murphy, 

 of the Brooklyn Institute Museum, in recent 

 years in various places, I find five specimens of 

 a Lmmobothrium recorded as taken from a 

 hoatzin on the river Orinoco in Venzuela 

 (date not given). Three of the specimens are 

 i mm ature, but two are adult and represent 

 both sexes. 



The extraordinary thing about this Lcemo- 

 hothrium of the hoatzin is that, although it 

 has been described by Cummings (Bull. Ent. 

 Research, Vol. IV., p. 43, 1913) of the British 

 Museum as a new species it is certainly very 

 closely related to an already known species de- 

 scribed under the name L. setigerum by 

 Piaget in 1889 from the Cayenne ibis (Ihis 

 cayennensis) which is a native of the same gen- 

 eral geographic r^ion to which the hoatzin is 

 confined, namely. South America from the 

 Amazon northward. Indeed, my own judgment 

 is that the hoatzin's parasite should rather be 

 called a variety of this species than the repre- 

 sentative of a new one. Lcemobothrium seti- 

 gerum, is a striking Mallophagan species, well- 

 characterized by a group of curious, heavy, 

 flattened and broad, short, spine-like hairs 

 projecting forward from the olypeal margin, 

 and it is certainly a parasite of ibises and 

 cranes, for I have recently described two 

 other varieties of the species from other 

 ibises. One of these varieties, L. setigerum 

 var. africanum, came from Theristicus hage- 

 dash from the Kilimandjaro region of East 

 Africa (collected by Sjotedt's Swedish Expe- 

 dition to Kilimandjaro-Meru), and also from 

 the same host taken near Mfongosi in Zulu- 

 land by a collector for the Durban (Natal) 

 Museum. The other variety, L. setigerum 

 var. cubensis, came from a courlan (^Aramus 

 giganteus holostictus), from Cuba, collected 

 by Mr. C. D. Eamsden. 



It is interesting enough to find a single 

 striking Mallophagan at home on a Cayenne 

 ibis of South America^ a wood ibis of East 

 Africa and a courlan of Cuba, but the inter- 

 est becomes excessive when a closely allied 

 species is found on the hoatzin in Venezuela. 

 Is the hoatzin, after all, less of a pheasant or 



