The Spinose Ear-Tick. 651 



of all the Ixodid ticks and have tougher, more leathery, skins. They 

 vary in their feeding habits much more than do tlie Ixodid ticks, all 

 of which, so far as known, have three active life-stages — larval, 

 nymphal, and adult — during each of which they attack the animal. 

 The spinose ear-tick also has three active stages, and only three 

 apparently, but the adult stage does not take food. The true tampan 

 has six active stages, but it does not take nourishment in the first, 

 while the fowl-tick has four and attacks the host in all of them. In 

 appearance the adult spinose ear-tick most resembles tlie true tampan, 

 but it is distinguished by a slight constriction of its body behind the 

 middle which has led to it being called fiddle (violin) shaped. The 

 nymph, the stage most commonly seen, is the only tick, so far as 

 known, that has a spiny skin. 



Many kinds of ticks attach themselves to the ears of animals, but 

 the larvae and nymphs of the spinose ear-tick and the larvae and 

 nj^mphs of the red tick are the only kinds, in South Africa at least, 

 known to attach deep in the ear. The red tick is one olf the most 

 widely distributed ticks in the country. Its young are quite common 

 in the ears of farm stock ; in fact they seem to feed almost exclusively 

 there, but they are not known to cause serious distress, and their 

 similarity in appearance to the common blue cattle-tick is sufficient 

 to enable farmers to distinguish them from the very dift'erent spinose 

 ear-ticks. 



Hiding Places of Adult Ticks. — Mr. Story's observations that the 

 favourite place for the females to lay in "would appear to be the 

 loose dry manure which fills the spaces between the stones at the 

 bottom of the kraal wall " maj^ be thought somewhat difficult to 

 reconcile with the American statement that the ticks "" crawl up 

 several feet from the ground and secrete themselves in cracks and 

 crevices of the boards and tiinbers near the mangers, in the bark of 

 trees, etc." But Mr. Story's conclusions in this connection are 

 probably quite correct for the ordinary South African conditions. 

 The ticks evidently have no need to crawl high, and are well content 

 to come to rest in loose dry dung, filling a dark hole near the ground 

 level. Such situations are generally readily available in kraals, calf- 

 sheds, and the like. Mr. J. C. Faure, of the Division, in January of 

 the present year spent a couple of days at a Kimberley District farm 

 in studying the habits of the species in the light of Mr. Story's 

 observations. At this farm there is a cow kraal with a connecting 

 calf kraal and a connecting milking-shed. The walls are of rough 

 stones set in dagga (puddled mud), and only the milking-shed is 

 roofed. In the shed there are partitions to kee]) the cows separated, 

 each formed of a few upright and a few horizontal eucalyptus poles, 

 from which the most of the bark has been removed. The poles have 

 cracked deeply in drying and thus afford numerous crevices in which 

 ticks may secrete themselves. A considerable number o'f the ticks 

 were dug out of holes in the wall both of the open calf-shed and of 

 the covered milking-shed, the majority at or close to the surface level 

 and sheltered in the pulverized manure that had accumulated there. 

 Several were found in two crevices about two feet up 'from the ground. 

 None was found higher, yet there may have been some out of reach 

 or in holes that were not probed. But hours spent in probing the 

 cracks in the partition poles in the covered shed disclosed about 

 twenty adults, many nymphal skins, and e^g shells from ten inches 



