i6 THOMPSON YATES AND JOHNSTON LABORATORIES REPORT 
ordinary Chigoe (calling it Bicho de Cacharro), he proposed the name of Sarcopsylla canis. 
Westwood, however, did not know this Bicho de Cacharro, nor did he attempt to 
characterize it from that report. There is no reason to believe that this Sarcopsylla 
canis is really distinct. 
The Chigoe was the only species known to science as late as i 860.* Frauenfeld, 
however, at this time described an allied form under the name of Hectopsylla 
psittaci, from South America, collected from a parrot. 
Westwood, in 1874, recorded a third member of this group under the name of 
Sarcopsyllus gallinaceus. This was the first species recorded from the Old World, and 
is now known to infest the domestic fowl apparently in all warm countries where the 
descendants of the Indian Gallus gallus have been introduced as domestic animals. 
In 1880 a fourth species was described by Haller, having been collected from 
a South American bat, under the name of Rhynchopsyllus pulex. 
Of the last three mentioned forms, only the females were at that time known. 
Taschenberg, in 1880, in his well-known monograph entitled Die Fl'dhe, was the 
first author to deal with these four fleas, and all other species of Siphonaptera known 
at that time. This monograph has been the basis for all subsequent research in this 
order of insects. The Siphonaptera are herein divided into two families, the 
Sarcopsyllidae and the Pulicidae. The descriptions of each family given by the author 
are in the main quite correct. It may here be observed that as the name Sarcopsyllidae 
is the first to have been given to the present family, and as this name is, moreover, 
accompanied by a diagnosis, it is necessary to employ it, though the generic title 
Sarcopsylla, as we have already stated, must unfortunately be rejected as a synonym of 
Derma tophilus. 
Taschenberg considered that Rhynchopsyllus pulex and Hectopsylla psittaci were 
identical. In this, however, he was mistaken, as we shall point out in the body of 
this paper. 
Since the appearance of Taschenberg's monograph four more species of the 
present family have been described. Weyenbergh, in 1881, published the description 
of a supposed new Hectopsylla, which he named testudo. This insect is the same as 
H. psittaci according to some specimens from Weyf.nbergh's collection. The Echid- 
nophaga ambulans Olliff (18 86), from New South Wales, is undoubtedly a Sarcopsyllid 
allied to gallinaceus, though Olliff's description is not exact enough to enable us to 
recognize the species with certainty. The generic term Echidnophaga, however, cannot 
be rejected for gallinaceus and allies. Enderlein discovered and described in 1901 
(Sarcopsylla =) Dermatophilus caecata which he found on a Brazilian rat, in some respects 
undoubtedly the most specialized Sarcopsyllid at present known. The fourth species 
was described and figured in 1903 and 1904 by Tiraboschi under the three names 
of Sarcopsylla gallinacea var. murina or italica, and S. rhynchopsylla, which he found on 
rats in Italy. 
* For literature see the account of each species in the body of this paper. 
