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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLVII 



Only three other Mallophagan kinds have been recorded 

 from the family. 



The great family of sparrows and finches, the Fringil- 

 lidse, including nearly 1,200 bird kinds, is represented in 

 the host-list by seventy-six species. The Mallophagan 

 species Docoplwrus communis has been recorded from 

 thirty-eight of these from the old and new worlds, and 

 Nirmus vulgatus from eighteen, all from the new world. 

 There have been almost no Mallophagan records made 

 from old world hosts since I described vulgatus, which is 

 possibly the explanation of the lack of any old world 

 records for it, although it may really be that the species 

 does not occur in 2 Europe. Among the Fringilline hosts 

 of the Mallophaga there are nine species representing 

 two genera, Camarhynchus and Geospiza, peculiar to the 

 Galapagos Islands. Most of these nine host species are 

 pretty strongly parasitized, one of them, indeed, Geopiza 

 fuliginosus, having had nineteen Mallophagan species 

 taken from it, the record as regards number of parasite 

 species from a single host form. Of these nineteen Mal- 

 lophagan species, four belong to the genus Docoplwrus, 

 five to Nirmus, five to Lipeurus, two to Colpocephalum, 

 two to Menopon, and one to Goniocotes. Among them 

 are included all of the seven species that have been re- 

 corded from Camarhynchus pallidus, the most parasitized 

 species of this sister sparrow genus peculiar to the 

 islands. But also there are included several Mallopha- 

 gan species found on various other host birds widely sep- 

 arated phyletically from Geopiza and Camarhynchus. 



In fact, in studying the parasitization of the Galapagos 

 Island birds— and I have had in hand two very full col- 

 lections from them— one is struck by the breakdown of 

 the general rule that the Mallophaga of one host group, 

 as a genus or family or order, shall be more or less nearly 

 exclusively confined to members of the group, and hence 

 to be characteristic of it. For example, one does not 

 expect to find the abundant duck parasite, Trinoton luri- 



2 1 have recently recorded Nirmus vulgatus from a starling from 

 Egyptian Sudan. 



