142 ARACHNOIDEA, 



CASE Family BDELLID^ (Snouted Mites). 



X. 



The habits and livery of this long-nosed group are entirely that 

 of the Trombidii, and there is little doubt that their affinity is 

 much greater with it than with any other tribe. Still it differs so 

 much in the parts of the mouth and palpi, that there can be no 

 objection to following the general opinion, and regarding it as a 

 distinct section. Many of them (indeed, all in the section as 

 originally constituted, Scirus of Hermann) appear to have a 

 head ; but it is only the mouth that usurps this appearance ; the 

 real head is still merged with the thorax, as is obvious from the 

 fact that it still carries the eyes. There are some species that 

 have all the above characters except the constriction into a neck 

 behind the mandibles ; and we think that there are indications 

 that this absence of a neck has been used by Dujardin for a 

 genus Molgus proposed by him for a species found on the coasts 

 of France, and said by Gervais (Apteres, iii. 253) to have been 

 described by him in a paper laid before the Institute in 1842, but 

 which would appear never to have been published, for there is 

 no appearance of it either in its " Memoires," or "Memoires 

 presentees." M. Gosse thinks that it must have been a marine 

 species, but the term coasts on which he founds seems to us rather 

 to refer to the shores. 



A more essential character of the family even than the quasi, 

 head or snout, lies in the long projecting narrow mandibles, and in 

 the extension and abrupt bending of the palpi, so as to look like 

 antenna. The mouth consists of a rostrum, composed of a central 

 conical tube, supported on each side by a valve, which together 

 form a sheath. 



The species known are not numerous, but several genera have 

 been proposed for them, chiefly founded upon the presence or 

 absence of eyes, their number and their position. There is one 

 species with no eyes, one with two, which makes the genus 

 Cunaxa of Heyden : another with three (the genus Cyta of Hey- 

 den), another with four (Bdella), and another with six. The mere 



