August, '17] HERMS: SPINOSE EAR TICK ' 407 



the average wood-boring Buprestid. It lives in the wood as a larva for 

 two or three years and pupates and transforms to the adult in a pupal 

 cell in the wood. Pupation takes place from July to October and the 

 transformation to the adult in a few weeks afterward. The adult then 

 rests over the winter in the pupal cell and emerges from the wood the 

 next spring or summer, from March to September. Adults have been 

 collected flying or crawling in the forests from March 20 to August 24. 



During the past fifteen years Chrysophana placida has been taken by 

 members of the Branch of Forest Insects, Bureau of Entomology, 

 United States Department of Agriculture, in the localities and host 

 trees listed herewith. 



Distribution 



California: Fallen Leaf, Pyramid Ranger Station, Placerville, INIark- 

 leeville, Shingle Springs, Sterling, Yreka, Tallac, Lake Valley Ranger 

 Station, Echo Lake, Meyers, Wrights Lake, IMonumental, Vade. 

 Colorado: Florissant. Oregon: Sumpter, Waldo, Ashland. Vtah: 

 Panguitch Lake, Kamas. Washington: Des Moines. 



Host Trees 

 Mountain, white or silver pine {Pinus monticola Dougl.), sugar pine 

 {Pinus lamhertiana Dougl.), single leaf pinon (Pinus monophylla T. & 

 T.), yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa Law^s), rock pine (Pinus scopulorum 

 Engelm.), Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi Oreg. Com.), lodgepole pine 

 (Pinus jnurrayana Oreg. Com.), digger or gray pine (Pinus sabiniana 

 Dougl.), knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata Lemmon), black hemlock 

 (Tsiiga mertensiana Carr.), Douglas spruce (Pseudotsuga taxifolia Brit- 

 ton), Alpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa Nutt.), white fir (Abies concolorF arry) , 

 red fir (Abies magnifica Murr.), giant arborvitae or western red cedar 

 (Thuja plicata Don.). 



CONTRIBUTION TO THE LIFE-HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE 

 SPINOSE EAR TICK, ORNITHODOROS MEGNINI 



By William B. Herms, University of California 



The spinose ear tick presents a problem of considerable importance 

 to the animal husbandryman in nearly all of the southern half of Cali- 

 fornia, particularly in the Imperial Valley where calves become seri- 

 ously infested and die from what the ranchers call tick fever. Experi- 

 ments and field observations on this species have been carried on more 

 or less continuously by the University of California Laboratory of 

 Parasitology during the past three or four years. From our records it 

 w^ould seem that few if any warm-blooded animals coming within the 

 reach of this tick are exempt from attack. Calves evidently are most 

 liable and suffer most severely, many dying from the effect^s. 



