Feb. '08] JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 47 



Dallas laboratory that Dermacentor variabilis in the larva stage, 

 attach, engorge and commence dropping in four days; a quiescent 

 period of seven days or more passes before the molt takes place. 

 The nymphs then engorge in about five days and pass a quiescent 

 period of seventeen days (in September at Dallas) before molting. 

 Considerable difficulty has been experienced in getting adults to 

 attach and engorge, owing probably to a failure to understand what 

 Lounsbury calls the courtship. A male that had previously fed 

 and a female unfed were confined upon the scrotum of a bovine 

 on November 1st ; these attached and reattached a number of times, 

 but up to November 14th had not been found in coito, though ex- 

 amined twice daily. On November 14th the female, having nearly 

 fed to repletion, was found in copulation with the male, remaining in 

 this relation for about twenty-four hours, but separating a number of 

 hours before dropping. Dropping took place on the 15th, a period 

 of over two weeks from attachment. Professor ]\Iorgan, however, re- 

 ports that he has found the female to engorge in from five to eight 

 days. The incubation period of eggs deposited the latter part of June 

 was twenty-seven days. This species usually chooses the dog as its 

 host, although it has been found upon a number of other mammals. 

 Dermacentor nitcns, the Tropical Horse Tick, a species found in Texas 

 from Brownsville to Corpus Christi, has been determined as passing 

 both molts upon the host. It is found largely in the ears, although 

 from lack of room it sometimes attaches in the mane of the horse. 

 The horse is the common host, although a few specimens have been 

 taken from the ear of the goat. 



Two species of the genus Haemapliysalis, leporis palustris, the Rab- 

 bit Tick of this country, and leachi, the Dog Tick of South Africa, pass 

 both molts off the host. There is a species of Haemaphysalis found 

 throughout the South, upon quail and other birds that feed upon the 

 ground, which, although its life cycle has not as yet been followed, 

 has been determined by the writer as passing (at lea.st occasionally) 

 the first molt upon the host. This species may prove to be leporis 

 palustris, which is found so commonly upon the rabbits (with a some- 

 what changed habit of molting) or it may be chordeiUs. This will soon 

 be determined, but as yet the adults have not been obtained. The life 

 oycle of Haemaphysalis leporis palustris has been partially followed 

 by the writer at Dallas and the part remaining will soon be completed. 

 The larvae engorge and commence dropping on the fifth day from 

 attachment; in October they were found to remain quiescent eighteen 

 days before molting. Nymphs attached and engorged in six days, 

 those dropping November 4th not having molted at the time of writing 

 (December 7th). It has been determined by large numbers of larvae 



