100 
Mallophaga 
Rallicola occurs, as I have already pointed out, on all rails from 
Ocydromus to Porzana. Its occurrence is far too general for it to have 
been accidentally acquired. But with Apteryx the case is somewhat 
different. There are but six species of the genus, and I have described 
only three species of Aptericola taken from five of them. These are 
small numbers, and the suggestion of straggling at a comparatively 
recent date might be put forward. But Aptericola is, after all, a rail 
parasite, and could only have straggled from some ralhne bird. New 
Zealand is rich in rails, and I have examined these with some interest, 
to see if any robust form such as Aptericola might be found upon them. 
I have collected Mallophaga from five species of Ocydromus from New 
Zealand itself; as well as from 0. sylvestris of Lord Howe Island. 
A species of Rallicola has been described by Piaget from 0. lafresnayanus 
of New Caledonia. I have also collected species of Rallicola from 
Porphyrio, Hypotaenidia, and Porzana from New Zealand. But in all 
these cases the parasite belongs to the small rail-infesting type; so it 
is not probable that Apteryx acquired its parasites from any existing 
rail. Notornis certainly remains unexamined, but there is no reason to 
suspect that its parasites would prove much different from those of 
Porphyrio. Moreover, the negative evidence, as I have stated above, 
of the absence of any other Ischnoceran parasite is in itself a very good 
reason for believing that Aptericola is and always has been the normal 
Ischnoceran parasite. 
I conclude, then, that Apteryx is nearer akin to the Ralli than to 
any other living birds. The possibility of this relationship has already 
been foreshadowed by Fiirbinger; and arguments for it have been set 
out at some length in Gadow’s systematic volume in Bronn’s Thier- 
Reichs, in both cases upon morphological grounds. 
REFERENCES. 
Hareison (1914). The Mallophaga as a possible clue to bird phylogeny. Australian 
Zoologist, I. pp. 7-11. 
Johnston and Harrison (1911). Notes on some Mallophagan generic names. Froc. 
Linn. Soc. N.S.W. xxvi. pp. 321-328. 
Kellogg (1914). Ectoparasites of mammals. Amer. Naturalist, xlviii. pp. 257- 
279. 
Piaget (1885). Les Pediculines, Essai Monographique, Supplement. Leyden. 
Rudow (1870). Beobachtungen liber die Lebensweise und den Bau der Mallophagen 
Oder Pelzfresser, sowie Besclireibung neuer Arten. Zeitschr. f. d. ges. Nahirw. 
XXXV. pp. 272-302, 
