Notes on Tyroglyphidse. By A. B. Michael. 21 



of the doubt which he expresses, calls the species " T. v^cilus" and 

 in this generic name he is quite correct. 



To pass now to what appears, at first, to be a totally different 

 subject : Dr. P. Kramer of Halle, in October 1881,* described a 

 new species of Tyroglyjplius without saying where he found it, 

 but the peculiarity of it was that the male had a thin, rounded, 

 chitinous, horizontal plate projecting from the dorsal surface of the 

 posterior margin. This plate, which was divided into four lobes by 

 deep indentations of its distal (hind) margin, was entirely unknown 

 in any other species of Tyroglyplius, or indeed of Tyroglyphidse, 

 and up to the present moment I beheve that T. Carjpio, as he 

 named it, is the only known species furnished with this organ. 

 Dr. Kramer very reasonably points out that this forms an analogy 

 to the Bermaleichi, and that the species may be considered as 

 indicating a closer relationship between the two groups than had 

 been supposed. In addition to this marked characteristic, the anal 

 suckers of Kramer's species, instead of being like those of ordinary 

 male Tijroglyiohi, are placed on the vertical part of the actual hind 

 margin, and project straight backward when exserted. 



Shifting once more to what appears like another entirely 

 different subject, Professors G. Canestrini and F. Fanzago of 

 Padua, in the year 1877, published what was then considered a 

 monograph of the Italian Acarina.^ This work was illustrated by 

 six octavo plates, and as the last figure of the last plate the authors 

 draw what they describe in the explanation of the plate as " A 

 parasite of Oribata.'" 1 have not been able to trace any reference 

 to this figure in the letterpress ; I have however often looked at it 

 and thought what a very strange creature it was, and wondered 

 that I had not ever found it upon any of the thousands of Oriba- 

 tidse which I have from time to time examined; and not finding it 

 I had concluded that it was not British. The creature in the 

 plate had suspiciously the look of a Eypopus, but the hind legs 

 were terminated by claws, not setse ; and it possessed the remark- 

 able feature of having, on each side of the anterior margin, close 

 by the insertion of the first leg, a large projecting simple eye, or 

 eye-like organ, quite unknown amongst any other Hypopi which 

 I am acquainted with. Its hypopial nature seemed therefore 

 extremely doubtful. 



To turn now to my own observations. During the past 

 autumn (1884), while in the midland-counties of England, I was 

 examining some stems of the common reed, Arundo pliragmites, 

 which were fading and decaying ; and discovered, on stripping off 



* "Ueber TyroglypJius carpio, eine neue Art der Gattung Tyroglyplius" 

 Zeitsclir. f. d. ges. Naturwiss., 1882, pp. 183-6, pi. xiii. 



t "Intorno agli Acari Italiani," Atti R. Inst. Veneto Sci. Let. ed Arti, 

 ser. V. vol. iv. 



