226 R. T. LEWIS ON SOME AUSTRALIAN TICKS. 



dogs, although very numerous, do not seem to cause much incon- 

 venience to the animals ; the males of these are said to largely 

 predominate, and to be larger than the females ; these are 

 especially common in the tropical districts of North Queensland. 

 Mr. Pound also mentions as a peculiarity of what he calls the 

 " true cattle ticks " that they are at once distinguished from all 

 other kinds in having white and semi-transparent legs, whereas 

 the others have either red or dark brown legs. This must be 

 a peculiarity of the Queensland variety, as I have about ten 

 different species of cattle ticks from Natal and Cape Colony, 

 the legs of which are either red, or brown, or banded with these 

 colours. Perhaps T should not omit to mention that Mr. Pound 

 speaks of having made lantern slides from the plates in illustration 

 of the paper " on the process of oviposition in the cattle tick," by 

 a member of this Club ; it is well that our members should know 

 that their papers read in this room very often have a wider field 

 of usefulness than they have any idea of, and whilst interesting 

 and instructive to their friends here, may prove even still more 

 practically useful on the other side of the world. 



Personally, I may say I have been more interested in the 

 contents of Mr. Pound's tenth bottle than in any or all of the 

 others ; for whilst they contain varieties of what appear to be 

 Ixodidce, No. 10, labelled " Queensland Fowl Ticks," undoubtedly 

 contains the rarer Argassidce. It curiously happened that three 

 or four months ago I had a special request from Cape Town to 

 procure, if possible, some specimens of Argas rejiexus, a kind of 

 tick said to be common in Europe, and to be frequently found in 

 pigeon-houses, lying concealed in crevices during the day but 

 attacking the birds whilst roosting at night. This creature, 

 although well known in Eui^ope, does not appear to have been 

 described here until March 1871, when some specimens were 

 discovered in a portion of Canterbury Cathedral then undergoing 

 repairs. Two specimens subsequently found also in one of the 

 passages of the Cathedral in April 1872, lived in a glass-topped 

 box for one year and ten months ; they laid eggs about two months 

 after their capture, and the eggs hatched about six weeks later, 

 the young had six legs, but though they lived about six months 

 they did not develop further. On being submitted to Professor 

 Westwood, they were by him determined to be Argas reflexus of 

 Latreille, synonymous with Ixodes Marginatus of Fabricius, and 



