NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXI. 1014. 219 ON THE POSITION OF NOTIOFSYLLA Noir. Nov., A GENUS OF SIPHONAFTEBA. By K. JORDAN, Ph.D., and tfie Hon. N. CHARLES ROTHSCHILD, M.A. (3 text-figuves.) MR. ROBERT CUSHMAN MURPHY, of the Central Museum, Brooklyn, has sent us for identification a pair of a flea which he obtained during " the South Georgia Expedition of the Brooklyn Institute Museum and the American Museum of Natural History." The species proves to be that known as Goniopsyllus liergueloisis. The name Goniop.vjlliis Baker (1906), however, cannot be employed, being preoccupied by Qoniops;/lliis Brady (1883), a genus of Crusfcwea. We therefore replace it by Notiopsj/Ua nom. uov., with henjiicletiais Tascherib. (1880) as type. Dealing with this Siphonapteron in Parasitologij i. p. 92 (1908), we stated that the genus was most nearly related to IL/strichopsijlla and Macropsylla, and expressed the opinion that the female possibly had two receptacula seminis, as in the genera mentioned. The good state of jjreservation of the two specimens kindly presented by Mr. Murphy enables us to correct these statements, and to give a description and some figures supplementing those already existing. Notiopsylla is a very near ally of the genus Pi/ffiops>/lla Roths. (1906), which is only known from the Eastern Hemisphere, being most abundantly represented iu Australia, but also occurring in India and Africa. We have as yet no Pt/giopsi/lla from South America. But the discovery of Goniopujllus kerguelensis on South Georgia renders it probable that this species, or other equally close allies of PygiopsijUa, occur on sea-birds in Southern Patagonia and the neighbouring islands. X. kerqueleiisis resembles iu facies the larger species of Pijgiopsijlla, being very hairy, and has all the main characteristics of Pyy;o/>sy^^a, but entirely lacks the pronotal comb. This deficiency is very interesting, as most species of Pijgiopsgll.it, like all the species of the allied genus Gcratophgllus, have a well-developed comb on the pronotum, but in Pijgiopsglla echidnae this comli is reduced to a few spines. Its total absence in Notiopsglla, therefore, is a final stage in the phyletic development of that organ. We have a parallel case in the subfamily Pulicinae. The pronotal comb is normal in size in Ctenocephalus, but reduced to a few teeth in the nearly allied genus An/taeopsgUa, while in Pidex irritans no trace of the comb is left. The absence of a frontal tubercle, the position and reduction of the eye, the antennal groove closed in the female and almost closed in the male, the elongate abdominal stigmata, the two autepygidial bristles on each side, the very strongly projecting pygidium, the presence of a j)atch of dispersed thin hairs on the inner surface of the hindcoxa, the five pairs of plantar bristles on the fifth tarsal segment, etc., are all characteristics which Notiopsglla shares with Pygiojisglla, the former being a PggiopsgUa without pronotal comb. It was the shape of the ninth abdominal sternite of the male which misled us to think that there was a close affinity between Notiopsglla and llgstrichopsglla. But a somewhat similar
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