FROM THE society's GARDENS. 255 



Anoplura and Mallophaga, for recent authors alone have agreed 

 to treat these two groups from the morphological standpoint *. 



Lest in the following essay it be urged, perhaps, that I have 

 recke 1 not my own rede, it must be explained that the amount 

 of anatomical work which a systematist is able to accomplish on 

 any one species is governed by the nature of the material — its 

 quantity and quality. No attempt has been made to dissect 

 species of which only one or two specimens were available, and 

 in no case has it been possible to attempt the anatomy of the 

 soft parts, as Part I. deals mainly Avith those specimens — in a 

 poor state of preservation — which formed the nucleus of the 

 collection handed over to me in the beginning from another 

 work3r who was prevented from carrying out the work. 



ANOPLURA. 



Genus Pediculus Linne. 



Pediculus capitis De Geer (1). 



Piaget (2, p. 626) described as a new species of Pedictihis a 

 form taken on Ateles pentadactylus Is. Geoff, from the collection 

 of the Museum of Leiden. P. consobrinus, as it was named, is so 

 close to P. capitis that one searches Piaget's text and figures in 

 vain for reliable distinguishing characters, and Neumann 

 (3, p. 440) concludes that P. consobrinus cannot be clearly 

 separated from P. ccqntis. Without Piaget's types before me, 

 it is impossible to be certain about this, but that P. cajjitis does 

 on oscasion in menageries pass from man to monkeys is shown 

 by specimens captured in the Gardens on the Red-faced Spider 

 Monkey {Ateles paniscus Linn., Family Oebidfe). 



Pediculus affinis Mjclbergf (4, p. 169). 



In large numbers on Ateles panlscus Linn. (Family Cebidse) 

 together with larvfe. In a lot distinct from the preceding. 



Fahrenholz (5, p. 8) has described the larvfe of Pediculus 

 capitis, with which the larv« of P. affinis agree very closely, not 

 only in the 3-segmented antenna, but in details of abdominal 



* The wliole question of the methods of research employed by the systematic 

 zoologist is discussed in an anonymous paper published in ' The American 

 Naturalist' for May 1914 (p. 369) entitled "Taxonomy and Evolution." 



f Tliis series of Pediculus, which undoubtedly belongs to the form named 

 P. affifds bj' Mjoberg, proves on examination to be a very inconsiderable variety 

 of P. capitis. Every one of the charactere given by Mjoberg is inconstant and 

 occurs occasionally, 1 find, on varieties of P. capitis from savage races. P. affinis 

 is probably a straggler from human beings, establishing itself on Ateles on account 

 of a certain similarity in the blood and hair between Ateles and the Anthropoids as 

 adduc3d by Friedenthal. On this assumption the family Pediculidas is, as fai- as 

 known at present, confined to the Old World : the Pediculinse on Man and Apes, 

 the Padicininffi on the lower monkeys. If it be held that P. affinis is a true 

 parasite and at no time a straggler from Man, then, in view of the verj^ general 

 opinion that Platyrhine and Catarhine monkeys diverged very early from one anothei", 

 this Cebid Pediculus would have to be regarded as a very remarkable case of con- 

 vergence. The question will be fully dealt with in the ' Annals and Magazine of 

 Natural History.' 



