(dr. a. c. oudbmans) a sarcoptes op a bat. 275 



legs of fowl. Or, better said, that a parasite living between the 

 two skins which compose the membrane of the ear of the bat, 

 is provided with such enormously developed diggingapparates on 

 all its legs. 



At present I don't believe that any Sarcoptide is known to 

 science, whicli may so unusually swell as our present species. It 

 remembers the Ixodldae ! 



One should say that the body is studded with eggs, like in 

 Canestrinia Giardi Trouess. (one of the Acaridiae Insedicolde) or 

 in Pediculoides ventricosus Newp. (one of the Tarsoneminï). This , 

 however, is not the case! In the specimen figured in fig. 8 and 

 9 I only found two membranes of mature eggs , in another also 

 two and in a third only one. Relying upon the enormous black or 

 better untransparent masses (see iig. 7) filling the body , I suppose 

 that the animal really feeds on great quantities of blood , and not , 

 as is generally adopted from Psoricae , of lymphatic fluid , or serum. 



Further we may safely conclude that the animal once burrowed 

 between the two skins of the ear of the bat , is obliged to enlarge 

 constantly its prison , and as it constantly remains on the same 

 spot too, it is obliged to turn round its vertical axis in order 

 to destroy continually round its body , consequently spirally , the 

 connective tissue between the two skins of the ear of the bat. 



An unusual phenomenon strengthens this my supposition. It is 

 that the opening through which the animal has entered its prison 

 is constantly found exactly in the middle of the circumference of 

 the animal's back. And further it is that the animal's prison or 

 habitation contained nothing else but the animal itself and its eggs , 

 abandoning the three or four larvae, which apparently were seeking 

 for the outlet. No excrements at all could be detected. This now 

 is easily interpreted. The animal's anus being constantly at the 

 outlet , the excrements are removed piece by piece by the wind 

 blowing into the outlet during the bat's flying, or by the shaking 

 movements of the ear, when the bat is fluttering through the 

 air, or by the sweeping back' movement of the ear when the bat 

 is cleaning it with its thumb. 



