AQUATIC HETEROPTERA. 



77 



Upolu : Mulifaniia, 2 3 ??, 9.xi.l925. 



Previously known to occur in India, Ceylon, Celebes, New Guinea, N. 

 Australia, Formosa, and Loo Choo. 



Anisops kuroiwae Matsumura is identical with A. fieberi. Matsumura says 

 tliat A. kuroiwae is distinctly larger deutlich grosser ") than A. fieberi, but the 

 former is " 6-6-5 mm." in leng-th, whereas A. fieberi measures 4-9-7-2 mm., 

 generally 6-5-7 mm. (Fieber's measurements, " 3| " lines for and 

 practically = 7 mm.). As a matter of fact I have seen many specimens from 

 Formosa and the Loo Choo Is., in both of which localities individuals forming 

 part of Matsumura's typical series of A. kuroiwae were obtained, but no differences 

 were observed between them and examples collected elsewhere. 



9. Anisops cleopatra Distant. Text-fig. 5. 



Anisops cleopatra Distant, Sarasin and Roux, Nova Caledonia, Zool., i, pt. 4, no. 10, p. .386, pi. xi, 

 fig. 8, 1914. 



Upolu : Laulii, 5 specimens, 2Li.l925 ; Apia, 16 specimens, i.l924, 3 

 specimens, 19.vi.l924 ; Malololelei, 4 specimens, 9.vi.l924 ; Mulifanua, 2 

 specimens, 9.xi.l925. Also 1 specimen, " Samoa," 1920 (O'Connor). 



This species was hitherto known only from specimens from New Caledonia. 

 The description by Distant, though accompanied by a beautiful drawing, is 

 very insufficient. The type is not to be found in the British Museum, which 

 however possesses the types of some other species described in the same paper. 

 But there are two specimens * from New Caledonia (J. J. Walker) in the 



Fieber {Abh. bohm. Gesel. Wiss., Prague, (5), vii, p. 482, 1852) are identical with Anisops niveus 

 (Fabricius) (c/. Kirkaldy, Ann. Soc. Ent. France, Ixviii, p. 106, 1899). All these theories, however, 

 were based on the "type" of Notonecta nivea Fabricius, which was said to be preserved in the British 

 Museum (Kirkaldy, Wien., Ent. Zeit., xxiii, p. 119, 1904). But although a Fabrician specimen, 

 which is identical with A. niveus auct., and was determined by Fabricius as " nivea " is contained 

 in the British Museum (Banks's Collection), it is not the type of A. 7iiveus, because the species 

 was described from specimens in the collection of D. Koenig. The real types (two specimens) 

 are now kept in the Zoological Museum of the University of Kiel, and seem to represent a different 

 species from A. niveus auct. Even A. niveus auct., which is known to be widely distributed 

 throughout Southern Asia and Central and Southern Africa, seems to be a composite species, as 

 has already been suggested by Hutchinson (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (10), i, p. 164, 1928). If the 

 Fabrician types and Fieber's types in the Zoological Museum of the University of Berlin could be 

 carefully studied, some changes in the nomenclature of this genus would undoubtedly become 

 necessary. 



* These specimens were identified by H. M. Hale as " Anisops doris Kirkaldy," but A. doris 

 is much larger than this species (" (J 8i-9 mm., $ 8-9J mm."^ — Kirkaldy, Wien. Ent. Zeit., xxiii, 



