NOTICES OF APiACHMDA. 



Ixodes bovis (Riley). 



T/ie Cattle Tick. 



(Ord. Arachnoidea: Fam. Isodid^.) 



Ixodes bovis Riley : in Spec. Rept. Comm. Dept. Agricul., on Diseases of 

 Cattle, 1871, p. 118. 



I send you a sample of lice, or ticks, that are found on cattle that 

 have died in several localities in Bucks and Montgomery counties. 

 Will you please give a name for them, their mode of propagation, 

 how and where j)i'opagated, and, if practicable, also a method for 

 killing them. 



J. M. 



Cakversville, Pa. 



The ticks are the Ixodes bovis of Riley, which frequently infests 

 horned cattle, and occasionally other animals, in the Southern and 



Western States, particularly in Texas, 

 whence it is sometimes known as " the 

 Texas cattle-tick." When received they 

 were gorged with blood, and their bodies 

 distended to an immense size (for a 

 mite), the largest measuring five-tenths 

 of an inch in length by four-tenths of 

 an inch in diameter, as shown in the 

 upper part of Figure 24. Soon after 

 their reception, the}' dej^osited large 

 masses of minute, rounded, translucent, 

 brown eggs to the number of hundreds, 

 from a single individual. From these 

 Fig. 24.— The cattle-tick, Ixodes the young will probably soon be pro- 

 BOVIS. (After Packard.) ^^^^^^^ perhaps in four or five weeks, 



judging from the development of allied species. They will have 

 but six legs, while in the adult form the number is eight. When 

 mature, they are flattened, leathery, reddish, seed-like forms, with an 

 oblong-oval body and long legs, as shown in figure. 



