35 Monstrosities in Siphonaptera by F. G. A. M. SMIT As far as I know, a special paper has never been devoted to the various anomalous phenomena occurring in Siphonaptera ; isolated cases only are accidentally mentioned in a few publications. As I have come across several cases of morphological anomaly, one may call it teratology, I think it worth while to publish the cases which are known to me. Monstrosities are not only valuable for teratologists, but they are also interesting from the systematic (cf. B,b and D) and phylogenetic point of view (cf. A). Monstrosities frequently were and still are regarded and described as e.g. new subspecies, especial-ly by amateurs and even by scientists (cf.B,b and D). This shows that it is not always advisable to describe a new (sub) species on the basis of only one specimen. It is desirable to have at one's disposal at least several specimens when describing new (sub) species, especially when a "new" species proves to be very closely related to a known one. One should always try to obtain long series of every species and subspecies, though this is not always an easy task. When studying a long series of a species, one gets familiar with its variability. Sometimes systematists describe anomalous features which do not exist at all. Dr F. A. Turk, for example, described for the first time a subspecies of Palaeopsylla minor Dale, viz. P. minor cornubiensis n. subsp. ( 1 ) . I had an opportunity of studying and comparing the types ( $ and 9 ), which are in the Zoological Museum, Tring, with Tur k's original description. I found that his interpretation of the so-called differences is absolutely wrong. He shows what is not present at all ! So his drawings and expla-nations are misleading. E.g. he saw two long apical hairs at the ninth sternite of $ . The type-specimen, however, has only one, as is usual in the nominate form, but the second hair is that of the other (the right hand) sternite, which lies under the left hand one he drew. He also states that the shape of the vertical arm of the ninth sternite is quite different to that present in the common Palaeopsylla minor ; I only observed a slight difference. He should know that individual variability is very common in fleas too. In my collection there are hundreds of specimens of this species and it is easy to pick out several specimens which show a still greater variation in the shape of the vertical arm of the ninth sternite than Tur k's specimen. Tur k's drawing of the seventh sternite of the
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