86 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



1876, from specimens found on a Penguin at Kerguelen by the 

 Transit of Venus Expedition ; Ixodes borealis by Kramer and 

 Neumann in 1883, from specimens brought from Behring Island by 

 the Vega Expedition. Turning to the original descriptions published 

 in the Reports on the collections made by these expeditions, I was 

 not satisfied that they related to one and the same species. The 

 adult St. Kilda specimens were apparently of the same species as 

 those from Behring Island, but that they were the same as the 

 Kerguelen ones was not so clear. I therefore sent one to the Rev. 

 O. P. Cambridge for comparison with his types, and he replied that 

 it had nothing to do with his H. puta. I next sent the specimen 

 to Prof. Neumann, who writes me that it corresponds well to Ixodes 

 borealis, K. and N., which he has called Ixodes putus (Cambr.), and 

 has made the type of a sub-genus Ceratixodes. As to whether H. 

 puta and /. borealis are or are not specifically identical, a com- 

 parison of the types would be the simplest way to decide the matter. 



Under the name of Ixodes (Ceratixodes} putus (Cambr.), Prof. 

 Neumann has recorded ticks J which he has himself seen, and con- 

 siders all belong to one species from several localities in the Tierra 

 del Fuego group of islands (taken from Penguins and Cormorants) ; 

 from Campbell Island, south of New Zealand ; from the islands of 

 St. Pierre, Miquelon, and St. Paul, off the south coast of Newfound- 

 land ; from Alaska ; and lastly from the cliffs of Yorkshire (taken 

 from Guillemots by Mr. F. Noad Clark). This is certainly a 

 remarkable and suggestive distribution. The Penguins in the 

 remote south, and the Guillemot and its allies in the north, live 

 at all seasons far apart ; and Prof. Neumann suggests that it was 

 probably by the Cormorants which as a genus are common to 

 both the northern and the southern hemispheres 2 - and some other 

 Palmipedes, also of wide distribution, that the tick has been dispersed. 

 Should the Shearwaters be added to the list of the tick's hosts, we 

 might readily suppose that these notorious wanderers have had 

 something to do with its dispersal. 



In 1852, Adam White gave to a tick, brought from Baffin's Bay 

 by Dr. Sutherland, the name Ixodes uritz, it being " parasitic on the 

 Loom (Uria troile}."^ Though probably the same species as that 

 now under notice, the want of a description or adequate figure in 

 any case invalidates this name. 



Prof. Newton tells me that Wolley, while climbing shoeless at 

 Handa in June 1849, got several severe bites from ticks of large 

 size. 



1 Resultats du Voyage du S.Y. Belgica Zoologie ; Acariens parasites, 1903. 

 Also states here that /. Jiinbriatus, K. and N. , is (J of this. 



2 He is wrong, however, in supposing that Phalacrocorax gractihis, L. our 

 Shag occurs also in Brazil and the Antarctic. 



3 P. C. Sutherland's Journal of Voyage in Baffin's Bay, 1852, vol. ii., 

 Appendix by A. White, p. ccx. 



