IIG 



DR. A. C. OUUEMANS A 8H01{T SURA'EY OF 



(c) Prostigmata Pleuromerengona are so called because the limbs are 

 planted at the sides o£ the body and not beneath it, being an adaptation to a 

 marine life. They occur not onh^ near the shore, but also at great depths,, 

 generally living among seaweed, upon which they crawl with facility. 

 When the wayes sweep them upwards from their natural haunts, they spread 

 out their limbs, which in many cases are provided with beautiful horizontal 

 fans, so that they gently sink again to the bottom. They suck both animal 

 and vegetable juices, and may be obtained by means of fine-meshed scoop- 

 nets, or by cautiously picking them out of a handful o£ seaweed placed in a 

 bowl with sea-water. 



(9) OcTOSTiGMATA, or Oribatoidea (Beetle Mites), are generally oval or 

 circular in shape, less than one millimetre in length, light or dark brown in 

 colour, ventrally more or less flat, dorsally more or 

 less convex, with a somewhat hard and shining 

 integument (hence the name Beetle Mites), and slow 

 in their movements. The stigmata are generally 

 eight in nnmber, and lie in the soft skin of the 

 acetabulum or socket, which holds the basal joint 

 (coxa) of the leg. The creatures live free among 

 dead and decaying leaves, among grass, in mosses 

 and lichen, upon and beneath the bark of trees, and 

 very often shelter under stones ; they are generally 

 vegetarian in their diet, feeding es[)ecially on the 

 hyphse, mycelium and spores of fungi ; therefore 

 their mandibles are not protrusive and are provided 

 only with short claws. But there are a few species 

 {Pelops) which have long exsertile mandibles, so 

 that acarologists suspect them of being predaceous. 

 A pair of pseudostigmata seems to indicate a relation 

 to the foregoing groups, but in the majority of the 

 species the legs are placed in two continuous rows, 

 one on each side. Of their pairing nothing is known. 



They resort to the well known and widely distributed trick of shamming dead 

 on the approach of danger. It has often happened that a roof of a house, or 

 the trunks of the trees of an orchard have been found to be swarming with 

 Beetle Mites, to the oreat fright of the inhabitants or of the owners ; but it 

 has been proved that the creatures are perfectly harmless. 



Fig. 17. — EremcBus hessei,. 

 Oudms. ; an African 

 species ; dorsal side. — ■ 

 Copied from Oiidemans,. 

 in Tijds. Ent. v. 45, 

 tal3.12; 1903. 



(10) AsTiGMATA, or AcAROiDEA, is the name of a large group of generally 

 minute creatures {ahares = indivisible) ; they are weak, white or pale, 

 generally oval in shape, rarely compressed, but plump and more or less 

 cylindrical. All are slow in their movements, and they lack stigmata. 



