Carpicnter — The Apterijgota of the Seychelles. 29 



Family PODURIDAE. 



Spring-tails of this family are numerous in the great northern continental 

 tracts, and not rare even in the Arctic regions. In tropical countries they 

 appear to be relatively scarcer, and this scarcity is especially noticeable in 

 insular faunas. The single Seychelles species belongs to a sulj-faniily 

 Neanurinae,' characterized by the slender, elongate mandibles and maxillae 

 (see Plate XIV, fig. 1 miul, mx, fig. 3), the mandibles being without a grinding 

 molar area, and the jaws being often adapted for piercing rather than for 

 biting. 



Neakurinae. 



Neanura sexoculata sp. nov. 



(Plate XIV, figs. 1-6.) 



Three ocelli (fig. 1 vc) and a vestigial post-antennal organ (fig. 1 ii.a.) 

 on each side of the head. Foot with claw untoothed, empodial appendage 

 (fig. 5 emp) vestigial. Maxilla (fig. 3) with acute apex and simple delicate 

 process (?palp. fig. 3 p). Fifth abdominal segment with intermediate tubercle 

 (fig. 6 tb^) distinct from dorso-lateral tubercle (fig. 6 tV) ; each of these 



' Borner ('06, pp. 156-7) proposes to replace the established name (Neanura) of the 

 typical genus of this sub-family by Achorutes, which Templeton gave (Trans. Ent. Soo. 

 Loud., 1836) to a genus comprising two diverse species — (1) dubius (belonging to 

 Achorutes as understood by Tullberg, Lubbock, Schott, and the great majority of modern 

 writers) and (2) muscorum, belonging to Gervais' Anura, 1841 (modified into Neanura by 

 MacGillivray, 1893). Borner wishes to revive for the former of these two groups Bourlet's 

 generic name Hypogastrura (Mem. Soc. Science Agric, Lille, 1839), which is stated by 

 its author to be founded for Podura aquatica Linne, although the description and figure 

 given show — as Borner correctly points out— that Bourlet had in view a species con- 

 generic with Templeton's Achorutes dubius. Hence Borner argues that Hypogastrura 

 must stand as the generic name of this group, and muscoruTn must become the type of 

 Achorutes, Templeton. Borner's argument seems reasonable, and he has been followed 

 in this revision of nomenclature by many subsequent writers. Yet his decision prejudges 

 the question, still under consideration by the International ('ommission on Zoological 

 Nomenclature, whether the type of a genus based on a misidentified species ought to be 

 fixed by what the Author states or by what he means. In the ' ' Smithsonian Inst. 

 Publication," No. 2256, 1914, pp. 152 f., this question is argued by a number of 

 zoologists from opposite standpoints, and is finally reserved by the Commission for con- 

 sideration ; and if this decision hold an author to the letter of his statement, Hypo- 

 gastrura becomes a synonym of Podura. Until, therefore, the principle sliall have been 

 settled by authority, I prefer to retain a nomenclature which nobody can misunderstand, 

 for Neanura can mean one genus, and no other. Achorutes, thanks to Borner's " emenda- 

 tion," has become ambiguous, as any name must when it gets transferred from genus to 

 genus in the same family. Borner himself gives a startling exhibition of the inconvenience 

 and confusion resulting from changes of this kind, by using Achorutes in one sense in the 

 introduction to his paper (1906), and in the other sense in the systematic portion of the 

 same paper ! 



