516 THE HIPPOPOTAMUS-MITE. 



less than twenty -eight teeth. The Rock-scorpion is a large creature, measuring about six 

 inches in length when fully grown. 



Like the other Arachnida, the Scorpion is carnivorous, and feeds upon various living- 

 creatures, such as insects and the smaller Crustacea. They mostly seize their prey in their 

 claws, and then wound it with the sting, before attempting to eat it. Even the hard-mailed 

 coleoptera, such as the ground beetles, the weevils, etc., fall victims to this dread weapon, 

 while the grasshoppers and locusts fall an easy prey before so terrible a foe. 



MITES; ACARINA. 



WE will now turn our attention to the little, but annoying, creatures called Mites. 



None of the Mites attain large dimensions, and the greater number of them are almost 

 microscopic in their minuteness. Everywhere the Mites are found, in the earth, in trees, in 

 houses, beneath the water, and parasitic upon animals. They haunt our cellar's and swarm 

 upon our provisions cheese, ham, bacon, and biscuits are equally covered with these minute 

 but potent destroyers ; and even our flour stores are ravaged by the countless millions of Mites 

 that assail the white treasures. Whether the cause or the effect of the malady, Mites are 

 found in many forms of disease, both in man and beast, and will certainly propagate the 

 infection if they are removed from the patient and transferred to a healthy person. They are 

 even found deep within the structures of the vital organs, and Mites have been discovered in 

 the very brain and eye of man. 



A very common and most annoying species is the well-known HARVEST-BUG. 



This little pest of our fields and gardens is very small, and of a dull red color, looking 

 exactly like a grain of cayenne pepper as it glides across a leaf. It is seldom seen until June 

 or July, and is most common in the autumn, in some places swarming to such an extent that 

 the leaves are actually reddened by their numbers. They are especially plentiful on the 

 French bean ; and I well remember that when I was a little boy I was horribly tortured by the 

 Harvest-bugs, which came from the leaves of the French beans among which I was employed, 

 and, crawling over my shoes, left a scarlet ring of intolerable irritation round my ankles. 



While we are walking through the stubble-fields, the Harvest-bug is terribly apt to make 

 successful attacks upon our ankles ; and in the case of persons endowed with a very tender 

 skin almost drives the sufferer to the verge of madness. Gilbert White, in his "Natural His- 

 tory," tells us that warreners are "so much infested by them on chalky downs, where these 

 insects swarm sometimes to so infinite a degree, as to discolor their nets and to give them 

 a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as to be thrown into fevers." 



The Harvest-bug does not confine its attacks to human beings, but equally infests horses, 

 dogs, sheep, and rabbits. It burrows under the skin in a very short space of time, and after a 

 little while a red pustule arises, sometimes as large as a pea, occasioning great irritation at the 

 time, and much pain if it be broken or wounded. On account of its red color, the French 

 call the Harvest-bug the ROUGET. 



A RATHER pretty species is called Ixodes venustus. It derives the name of " venustum," 

 or beautiful, in consequence of the pretty coloring of its surface. The ground color of this 

 creature is deep black, upon which are set some patches of rich orange-red, edged with yellow. 

 The little lines arranged round the body are also yellow, and its legs are red. It is moderately 

 large, being about one-sixth of an inch in length. 



Two species are parasitic upon the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus, and derive their 

 name from the creatures which they infest. The HIPPOPOTAMUS-MITE, or TICK, as it is some- 

 times wrongly called, is of pale straw color above, and deep liver-red below, the limbs being of 

 the same color as the upper surface, but rather paler. The lines and streaks upon the body 



