THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 19 



zation there are innumerable gradations, and hence some variations in the 

 effect of simple insect bites. 



Some variation is due to other factors. Bites may be followed with 

 less pain if the insect is allowed to work undisturbed. As a child, I was 

 taught not to slap mosquitoes until they were ready to depart, and my im- 

 pression is that following this instruction has saved me suffering. Persons 

 bitten by Argasids have told me the pain is always greater if they disturb 

 their tormentors. I have not tested this assertion, but I know that the 

 bite of Argasids left to finish their meal in peace is trifling in after-effects 

 compared with that of Ixodids which have been disturbed by forcible 

 removal ; one must remove the latter class of ticks or suffer their presence 

 a number of days. Even if one of the latter kind has not fully inserted 

 its rostrum preparatory to feeding, the after-effects are relatively more 

 painful. Again, the structure of a tick's rostrum is such that forcible 

 removal of the body often leaves a portion of the organ imbedded in the 

 flesh. Large and painful festers may be thus initiated, which, if not prop- 

 erly attended to, may lead to serious consequences. Further, tick bites 

 may be made more painful by indiscreet scratching or by irritation from 

 one's clothing. In May last, while absorbed in watching larval ticks on 

 grass tops, I became covered with the little fellows. Many worked their 

 way through my clothing and my body in places was soon stippled with 

 attached ones. Instead of smearing these with oil and leaving them to 

 detach themselves, a measure which prevents almost all further irritation, 

 I simply scrubbed them off in my bath. The result was innumerable 

 painful though minute festers on my ankles and back. One cannot easily 

 reach his back between the shoulders, and there the inflammation and 

 pain soon subsided ; but for ten weeks my ankles, which came in for 

 scratchings without number and were also in continual friction with my 

 boots, remained painfully sore. Occasional injury beyond that incidental 

 to the bite may be caused, I suspect, by the introduction of the organisms 

 found in abscesses (such as Streptococcus pyrogenes). The attack of a 

 certain cattle tick in this country is not uncommonly followed by the 

 formation of an abscess, and it may be that in this case the tick or ticks 

 had previously feasted about a similar sore ; certain it is that many are 

 often to be found clustered about great festers. 



Dr. Behr, like myself, scouts the supposition that Argas persicus 

 inflicts a fatal wound. He suggests that the fatality may be due to the 

 coincident occurrence of malaria, and mentions that malarious fevers 



