lOO JUNGLE ISLAND 



to catch on any moving thing that brushed by. 

 These were called seed ticks. They are tiny things 

 that can get through anything short of leather. 

 I have found as many as fifty on one forearm. 

 Fortunately they have the habit of wandering 

 about over the skin for some time before settling 

 down to bury their heads and suck blood, and 

 it is at this time that they can be most easily 

 removed. If they are allowed to settle down and 

 stay, their bodies swell surprisingly with blood. 

 I have seen them a half -inch and even more 



across. 



The sure and slow way is to pick them off by 

 hand one at a time. The wholesale treatment is 

 to rub down one's body with kerosene, follow this 

 with a heavy lather of soap and water, and poHsh 

 off with alcohol. Even after this program I have 

 found the larger ones hanging on, and then the 

 only thing to do was to ask some one to take 

 them off in return for a similar favor. 



The best practice I found was to go ahead as 

 if there were no ticks around as long as possible 

 and then pick them off and go ahead again. The 

 negroes took their spare time for looking over 

 themselves and one another quite as a matter of 

 course. But I never quite reached the place 

 where I was not somewhat embarrassed to sit 

 in the first-class coaches of the Panama railway 

 of an evening, picking off ticks that rambled 

 across the back of my neck toward my hair. 



