141 



SOME NEW WEST AFRICAN SPECIES OF ANOPHELES 

 (SENSU LATO), WITH NOTES ON NOMENCLATURE. 



By F. W. Edwards, B.A. 



{Fublislied hi/ permission of the Trustees of the British Museum.) 



In describing the following new species from West Africa, some words of 

 explanation are needed as to the generic names used. In the first place, it is 

 necessary to say that the writer follows Messrs. Dyar and Knab in considering 

 that most of the genera into which Meigen's genus Anopheles has recently been 

 split up are not genera in any accepted sense, and should sink under the old name 

 Anopheles. Provisionally, however, Stethomijia, Chagasia, Calvertina and Bironella 

 are considered as distinct ; as none of these genera are African, this will not 

 affect the present paper. Lieut.-Col. A. Alcock, of the London School of Tropical 

 Medicine, has kindly allowed me to see the manuscript of a paper on the classi- 

 fication of Anopheles, which he is about to publish in the Annals and Magazine 

 of Natural History, and I have been able to concur entirely with his views ; he 

 recognises only five sub-genera of Anopheles, the sub-genus Nyssorhynchus including 

 all those species with flat scales on thorax and abdomen, i.e., the genera 

 Nyssorhynchus, Cellia and Ncocellia of Theobald's Monograph. 



It may be as well to point out that whether this course be adopted or not, 

 certain other changes of nomenclature will be necessary. In his original paper on 

 the classification of the Anophelin^ ( Journ. Trop. Med. II., 1902, p. 181), 

 Theobald designated Anopheles rossi as the type of his genus Grassia (^Myzomyia, 

 Blanchard), and A. argyrotarsis as the type of Laverania {Nyssorhynchus, 

 Blanchard). Although he subsequently (Mon. Cul. III., pp. 12-14) altered the 

 type-species, the original types must stand, having once been published. This 

 means that James' Nyssomyzomyia must sink as a synonym of My zomyia, and 

 Theobald's Cellia as a synonym of Nyssorhynchus. If it is desired to retain 

 as distinct the group James has called Nyssomyzomyia, it must be known as 

 Myzomyia, and the species included under Myzomyia by James must be given 

 a new name. In the same way Theobald's Cellia becomes Nyssorhynchus, while 

 if the group Nyssorhynchus (as used by Theobald in the fifth volume of his 

 Monograph) be retained as a genus or sub-genus, it will also require renaming. 

 It should further be noticed that in his paper on the Indian ANOPHELiXiE (Rec. 

 Ind. Mus,, Vol. IV., No. o, Nov., 1910), Captain James has incorrectly cited 

 the type-species of the genera Myzomyia.^ Pyretophorus, Nyssorhynchus, Cellia 

 and Myzorhynchus. Captain James says of the genus Stethomyia, " probably all 

 the species now assigned to it would come in my new genus Neostethoplieles." If 

 this is the case, Neostethopheles sinks as a synonym of Stethomyia. I have 

 examined the types of A. aitkeni and A. immaculata in the British Museum ; 

 the former appears to be a true Stethomyia, but the latter has head-scales of 

 quite the ordinary type. 



BULL. ENT. RES. VOL. II., PART 2, JULY 1911. 



