Specific relations between mechanical displacements and stresses for Rayleigh-type surface acoustic waves propagating on an anisotropic half space are demonstrated. For 16 symmetry configurations belonging to the orthorhombic, tetragonal, hexagonal and cubic systems, involving only two displacement and stress components, it is shown that the ratio between the shear and normal stresses inside the propagation media is equal to the ratio between the normal and in-plane displacement components at the free surface. This result generalizes the previous one obtained in the case of an isotropic solid [W. Hassan and P. B. Nagy, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 3107-3110 (1998)]. (c) 2008 Acoustical Society of America.