THE SUEEP TICK. 



85 



95. Bat Tick. 



head of its captor, where it is an undesirable guest. Another 

 species sometimes infests the ox." 



In the wingless Sheep tick (Melophagus ovinus, Fig. 94, with 

 the pupa-case on the left), the body is wingless and very hairy, 

 and the proboscis is very long. The young are developed within 

 the body of the parent, until they attain the pupa state, when 

 she deposits the pupa- 

 case, which is nearly- 

 half as large as her 

 abdomen. Other gen- 

 era are parasitic on 

 bats; among them are 

 the singular spider- 

 like Bat ticks (Nycte- 

 ribui. Fig. 95), which 

 have small bodies and ;/ 

 enormous legs, and are either blind, or 

 provided with four simple eyes. They 

 are of small size, being only a line or two 

 in length. Such degraded 



forms oi' Diptera have a remarkable resemblance to 

 the spiders, mites, ticks, etc. The reader should 

 compare the Nycteribia with the young six-footed 

 moose tick figured farther on. Another _/ 



spider-like fly is the Chionea valga 

 (Fig. 96 ; and 97, larva of the European 

 species), which is a degraded Tipula, 

 the latter genus standing near the 

 head of the Diptera. The Chionea, 

 according to Harris, lives in its early 

 stages in the ground like many other 

 gnats, and is found early in the spring, 

 sometimes crawling over the snow. 

 Wc have also figured aud mentioned ^^- ^P^*^*^*" ^^• 

 previously (page 41) the Bee louse, Braula, another 

 wingless spider-like fly. 

 The Flea is also a wingless fly, and is probably, as 

 97. Larva of has been suggested by an eminent entomologist. 

 Spider fly. as Baron Osten Sacken informs us, a degraded genus 

 of the family to which Mycetobia belongs. Its transformations 

 are very unlike those of the fly ticks, aud agree closely with the 



