as affecting Domesticated Animals. 



45 



simply picking off the pupae and casting tliem away, as 'vvell 

 as by crushing them with his fingers. 



The best account of the structural peculiarities of the jNIelo- 

 phagus we have yet seen is from the pen of Mr. L. Lane Clarke, in 

 the January number (1864) of 'The Intellectual Observer.' It 

 enters, however, into many details of little interest to the general 

 reader, and therefore we content ourselves by reproducing a 

 shorter description of the parasite from the pages of the ' Micro- 

 graphic Dictionary.' 



" Melophagus Ovis : antenna* small, sunk in an eye-like cavity 

 of the head ; eyes small, oval, resembling two groups of ocelli ; 

 setae three, enclosed in two sheath-like, hairy, unjointed organs 

 (labial jjalpi), resembling otherwise those of pulex, and arising 

 from the sides of a triangular labium. Legs robust ; tarsi with 

 two stout serrated claws, each having at its base a blunt process ; 

 accompanying the claws is an elegant feathery tarsal brush, and 

 on the under side of the last tarsal joint is a bilobed pectinate 

 organ. * 



Figure 4, which we here insert, gives a good representation 

 of the Melophagus when magnified, and shows many of the 

 peculiarities just referred to. 



Fig. 4. 



Melophagus Ovinus. Miignifietl. 



Article Meluphila. 



