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mark, for so great was the damage done and trouble occasioned 

 by them in hot climates, especially in the West Indies, that 

 there the inhabitants were inquiring whether some Government 

 aid could not be given to assist them in dealing with the mis- 

 chief, or in ascertaining some means of doing so. Of course, as 

 Mr. Lewis had mentioned, a great deal of the trouble which 

 arose in the case of these bites was due to the rostrum getting 

 broken off in the wound. Animals would be likely to scratch 

 the Ticks off, and persons would pull them off roughly when 

 they felt themselves bitten, so that there would be in most 

 cases portions left behind. If they examined the specimens of 

 Ixodidfe sent home to this country they would find that in nine 

 cases out of ten the rostrum was broken off. The sucking 

 powers of these creatures were very remarkable, but he did not 

 think that the muscular distension of the abdomen was the 

 means by which the suction was produced ; the sucking organ 

 was probably the pharynx, and the abdomen was merely the 

 receptacle into which the blood was passed. The pharynx was 

 furnished with a remarkable set of muscles, which enabled it 

 to act like a powerful force pump. Measurements of Ticks 

 were of very little use unless you knew whether the individuals 

 were full fed or not, because so great were their powers of dis- 

 tension that a creature which when empty was no larger than a 

 grain of mustard seed would when gorged swell up to the size 

 of a person's thumb-nail. Prof. Leidy was so struck with this 

 remarkable distension that he took the trouble to weigh some 

 of the individuals before and after they had been feeding, and 

 he found that in some instances they weighed nearly 100 times 

 as much when full fed as they did before they began. He 

 might mention also that latterly the Ixodidse had been divided 

 up into many genera, so that now the word Ixodes was used in 

 a very restricted sense, as compared with its application many 

 years ago. 



Mr. Western said he could quite corroborate what had been 

 said as to the enormous increase in the size of these creatures 

 after sucking blood, and also as to the amount of mischief they 

 did by their attacks. In the East Indies their enormous 

 numbers made them a source of great annoyance, and from the 

 considerable amount of irritation set up they caused various 

 diseases amongst animals, not only by the bites themselves, 



