270 MR. A. D. MICHAEL ON SOME TJNDESCRIBED 



The genus Glyciphagtos was instituted by Hering * in 1835, 

 for an Acarus which he found feeding on dried fruits. It is to 

 be feared that many of the species which have been added to it 

 by subsequent authors do not properly belong to it. In the year 

 1867, however, MM. Fumouze and Eobin t took considerable 

 trouble to define the genus, and the leading characters of that 

 definition may probably be fairly summarized (somewhat as 

 by Andrew Murray J) as Tyroglyphidse with long tarsi, a rough 

 (granular) skin, with feathered, pectinated or palmate hairs ; and 

 the females whereof are provided with a short, tubular projec- 

 tion in the median line of the hind margin, w^hich Murray calls 

 " an anal button." 



In 1868, Eobin § found it necessary to modify this definition, 

 so far as the plumose condition of the hairs was concerned, in 

 order to include a species discovered and called by him Glyci- 

 phagus JieriGius, which had simple setiform hairs. 



I'umouze and Eobin divided the genus into two parts : the 

 second division, which they call " Glyciphagi with plumose or 

 palmate hairs," has the skin more strongly granular, the abdo- 

 men broader and flatter, the tarsi shorter, and the hairs shorter, 

 •but otherwise much more developed than in the first division. The 

 Acari which I am about to describe clearly belong to this second 

 division ; but in order to admit them, it is necessary to modify 

 the subgenus as Eobin modified the genus, for the hairs in this 

 instance are not developed into plumes or leaf-like structures, 

 but into strong, thick spikes. 



Eumouze and Eobin's subgenus contained only two species, 

 viz. G. plumiger and G. palmifer ; and it is not strange that 

 other curious species should be added to the division which cpn- 

 tains these very beautiful and remarkable creatures. 



I ventured early in 1879 to point out that the anal button, 

 or tubular projection, which acarologists then apparently con- 

 sidered as a useless ornament, was really the bursa copulatrix, 



* " Die Krazmilben tier Thiere iind einige verwauclte Arten." Nov. Act. 

 Acad. Leop. t. xviii. pt. xi. p. 619. 



t " Mem. anatomique et zoologique sur les Acariens des genres Cheyletus, 

 Glyciphagus Qt Tyroglypkus." Joiirn. de I'Anat. et de la Physiol. (Eobin), t. iv. 

 (1867), p. 568. 



I Economic Entomology, London, 1876, p. 276. 



§ "Eecherches sur ime espece nouvelle de Sarcoptides du genre Glyciphage." 

 Journ. de I'Anat. et de la Physiol (Eobin), t. v. p. 604. 



