64 Microscopical Society, 



Calamoherpe longirostris. Col. vittd pallidd, supra gculos cer- 

 vind; corpore superne rufo, sultils saturate cervino; meritp alhido. 



Faint line over the eye fawn-colour ; all the upper surface reddish 

 brown, becoming more rufous on the upper tail-coverts ; primaries 

 and tail dark brown, fringed with rufous ; chin whitish ; all the under 

 surface deep fawn-colour ; irides yellowish brown. 



Total length, 6 J inches ; bill, \^ ; wing, 3 ; tail, 3 ; tarsi, 1 . 



Hab. Western Australia. 



MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 



June 18, 1845.— Thomas Bell, Esq., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



A paper by George Shadbolt, jun., Esq., " On a British species of 

 Ixodes found upon Cattle," was read. 



The insects forming the subject of the present paper were found 

 on some cows belonging to a farmer residing at Chingford, Essex, 

 on the borders of EjDping Forest. They are known to the country 

 people by the name of the " Tick," but they are aware that they 

 differ from the insects of that name which infest sheep and goats. 

 They are found upon cattle, attacking all parts indiscriminately, and 

 causing much irritation and annoyance to them. They have been 

 found in the number of several hundreds on a single cow, and have 

 also been known to attack even human subjects, but this is not com- 

 mon, and although it is probable that they infest other animals, the 

 author has seen them only on cows. They do not appear to breed 

 on the animals infested, but are produced in the forest into which 

 the cattle are sent to graze, and which appear to become infested 

 with them by their crawling up their legs while feeding. After 

 having attached themselves by means of a very curious apparatus 

 with which they are furnished, they gorge themselves with blood, and 

 the abdomen increases in size from about the ^^jth of an inch until 

 they become as large as a small bean ; when fully gorged they fall 

 off, and the author was not able to ascertain their further progress. 

 The form of this insect is oval : it has eight legs, in which particular 

 it differs from the Brazilian species described by Mr. Busk in a former 

 paper read to the Society, these last having but six. These legs are 

 attached to the anterior half of the trunk, and consist of seven joints, 

 the tarsi being terminated by a species of webbed foot, capable of 

 being folded together and furnished with two recurved claws. The 

 oral apparatus by which it attaches itself is exceedingly interesting ; 

 it consists of two palpi serving as a kind of sheath to the other parts 

 when inactive, two jointed mandibles, and a barbed or hooked labium. 

 Specimens of this and other species were afterwards exhibited. 



Also a paper by H. Deane, Esq., ** On the Existence of Fossil 

 Xanthidia in the Chalk," was read. 



After mentioning that the occurrence of Xanthidia in a fossil state 

 had not hitherto been observed in any other situation than in the 

 flint-nodules of the chalk, and consequently that great doubt existed 

 whether these fossils were really independent animal existences or 

 only parts of some other creature, Mr. Deane stated that there is a 

 grayish kind of chalk having no flints, but containing quantities of 



