380 Transactions of the Society. 



them was one wliicli struck me as being likely to be tbe adult 

 form of Labidophorus, but the question was how to prove this and 

 to ascertain whether what was merely a conjecture would turn out 

 to be an actual fact. The mode which I adopted for this inquiry 

 was twofold ; in the first place I put some adults of the newly 

 found species in a cell, hoping to breed the larva ; then the young 

 nymph, and then the Ryj)opus from them. In the second place 

 I found in the mole's nest, with these adults, an immature Acarus 

 in the ordinary nymphal stage ; which, although it was very 

 different from the adults, I suspected was the nymph of the species. 

 I found these of various ages, quite young, and nearly full grown. I 

 selected a number of specimens which I thought would soon 

 undergo their final ecdysis and become images, and placed them in 

 a cell by themselves ; I also selected a number of young specimens, 

 which I put in a separate cell ; I did my best to keep the 

 inhabitants of both cells in a healthy condition, and I submitted 

 each to very frequent and careful microscopical examination. This 

 last method had the desired result before the first process had 

 time to be completed. I was soon very pleased to see that some of 

 the older nymphs became inert, and by watching them while in 

 this condition I was enabled to see the nymphal skin split in some 

 instances and to see what I had suspected to be the adult actually 

 emerge from the nymphal skin ; so that this part of the investiga- 

 tion was complete. The cell of younger nymphs was equally 

 fortunate; these arrived in a healthy condition at the period of 

 ecdysis, and, to my great satisfaction, I actually saw, in one or 

 two instances, the hypopial nymph, Kramer's Labidophorus talpse, 

 emerge from the skin of the young ordinary nymph, just as the 

 images had done from the full-grown specimens. Thus the life- 

 circle was traced, and it was at last certain what was the adult 

 form of Kramer's Hypopus. 



It now remains to say something as to the position of the 

 creature among the Acari, and as to its more interesting features. 

 It would seem at first natural to place it in Haller's genus Derma- 

 carus, it being decidedly allied to his species ; on the other hand, 

 I found with it two other new species which I think fairly belong 

 to the genus Glyciphagus. Although not very typical species of that 

 genus, they are certainly so closely allied to the Glyciphagi of 

 Robin's second sub-genus, viz. 6r. palmifer and G. plumiger, that it 

 would scarcely be desirable to place them in a different genus. On the 

 other hand, they are as closely allied to the present species as that 

 species is to Haller's Dermacarus, and the present species possesses 

 tlie principal characters of the genus Glyciphagus, except the 

 strongly developed hairs ; it has the rough skin like shagreen, the 

 tubular projection (bursa copulatrix) in the middle of the hind 

 margin of the females, which is so characteristic of the genus, but 



