158 A. C. OUDEMANS. ACARI. 



A second information about the Celebes mite is from the pen of ALB. C. KRUYT. 

 This gentleman writes on p. 61 of his paper entitled Van Paloppo naar Posso [Mededeelingen 

 van wege liet Nederlandsch Zendelinggenootschap, Deel 42; 1898) 



„Ik sliep van nacht zeer weinig. Er waren tal van kleine beestjes, door de Tolampoe's 

 kasisi genoemd, en in de Molukken en de Minahassa bekend onder den naam van gonone '). 

 Zij vliegen rond en maken geen geluid, doch veroorzaken een ondragelijken jeuk op de 

 lichaamsdeelen, die bloot liggen." 



Most probably Mr. Kruyt has not met with the real gonone, for firstly the gonone 

 is incapable to fly and secondly it attacks by day especially the ankles, shins and calfs, not 

 by night the naked limbs (hands and face). 



Returning now to New Guinea, Mr. VAN DER. SANDE writes me the following: 



„Remarkable is the fact that VAN DlSSEL dénies the occurrence of the mites in the 

 Western countries, near Fakfak. Remarkable too that on the Central-Office of the London 

 Missionary Society, 16 New Bridge Street, London E. C. one never heard „of the existence 

 of such insect troubles."' Mr. P. WARDLAN THOMPSON, who informed me of this question 

 in the name of that Society, has formerly visited himself ail the stations of the missionaries. 

 Prof. ALFRED C. Haddon and Dr. W. H. R. RiVERS too, both of Cambridge, who participa- 

 ted in an expédition (1898) to Torres Straits and then also visited themselves British New 

 Guinea, wrote me that they never perceived or heard of it. The positive expérience of Dr. 

 C. G. SELIGMANN, who accompanied the expédition of 1898, dates therefore probably not of 

 that year, but from the Daniels Expédition, from which the named physician just returned. 

 It is the only positive informance that I could obtain concerning British New Guinea. The 

 English missionaries and writers do not say a word of it. The Dutch Officers in the Navy, 

 who made an expédition on the Merauke River, not far from the Dutch-British frontier, and 

 who on the upper course took little trips in the bush and slept on the shore, told me, that 

 they were vexed by the land-leeches, but never by the mites. Possibly the time of the year, 

 or the occurrence of spécial plants may be of influence. So, for instance, the missionary VAN 

 HaSSELT told me, that at Dorei the mites are not met with in the dwellings, but especially 

 in the long grass. LAUTERBACH too speaks of the „Schilf". There where this kind of grass 

 is absent, or when the visitors avoid to go through it, one most probably will not be plagued 

 by the mites. It is a fact that the members of our expédition more than once observed the 

 symptoms caused by the mites on their hands, but never on the face, though this often came 

 in contact with twigs and leaves of the shrubs." 



„WallaCE, who stayed four months at Doré, makes only mention of the charge caused 

 by ants and nies, not by the mites." 



„The missionary W. L. Jens, now Représentative of the Utrecht Missionary Society, 

 Janskerkhof, 18, Utrecht, experienced that at Doré the mites indeed are not fréquent, that 

 they are met with still less on the Isle of Mansinam in the neighbourhood, but that they 



1) (Note of the Editors): „De gebroeders Sarasin geveD gonone weer door: Milbe, een soort van made of mot." First 

 note that the gentlemen Sarasin are not brothers, but cousins. Secondly Milbe is a mite, not a maggot^ nor a moth. 



