Occasional JS^otes. 47 



10. IxoDiD ON Swallow. — I have received the following 

 from the Government Entomologist, Cape Town, under date 

 1st February, 1910 :— 



" Professor G. Neumann writes as per the following trans- 

 lation in reply to mj letter accompanying the tick taken 

 from a Swallow : — 



' The tick from Hirundo rust'ica which you sent me on the 

 22nd of December last, and which I received on January 8th, 

 is Ixodes frontalis, Panzer. It is a poorly known species 

 which is sometimes found, always in small numbers, on 

 divers birds in Europe, non-migratory or migratory, and 

 always in the state of female or of nymph. The male has 

 not yet been found, which leaves some doubt upon the 

 morphological limits of the species.' 



" I wrote to Neumann, on receipt of yours of January 4th, 

 explaining that the Swallow was H. alhigidaris. My first 

 letter had merely stated that the species was probably rustica. 

 Stark says in his book on South African birds that H. alhi- 

 gularis breeds in South Africa and migrates to parts unknown 

 — probably East and Central Africa — towards winter. The 

 tick named seems not to be recorded from Africa before, and 

 there seems to be no telling where the bird picked it up, 

 and — in the absence of any knowledge of the habits of the 

 species — how long it may have carried it." 



Two of these ticks have since been found on examples of 

 the Pied Starling {Spree bicolor). J. P. Murray. 



Maseru, Basutoland, 

 29. 7. 10. 



11. The Fifth International Congress of Ornithology. 

 — This was held in Berlin from May 30th till June 4th of this 

 year, under the Presidency of Dr. A. Reichenow, of the 

 Berlin Museum of Natural History. Dr. Briihl was Secretary. 

 A full account of the meeting will appear later. 



