EAST KENT NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 25 



Pharmacopoea and Brandish's solution of potasa seemed to be 

 most destructive to the parasites ; but their tenacity of life is so 

 great and their absorbent powers so little, that they are not easily 

 destroyed by specifics. Mr. Gardner, whose practical experience 

 had unfortunately been so great, concurred with Dr. Kearsey. 



Anatomical and Physiological Observations. — These were under- 

 taken, at the request of the meeting, by Mr. Gulliver ; and some 

 of the results are noted below, from the examination of numerous 

 specimens supplied by Colonel Cox, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Dowker, 

 and Mr. Bell. All the specimens were -eight-legged Acarina, 

 belonging to the family Ixodea, and, as asserted, to the species 

 Ixodes Diiqesii. No eyes could be detected. 



Sexes. — All the large, lead-coloured specimens were pregnant 

 females. Many of the small ones were also females, but these 

 were commonly of a lead colour, and not red, except in the legs and 

 plate at the back of the head. In many ova the large germinal 

 vesicle and its single spot or nucleus was plainly seen. As to 

 the males, they occur abundantly, and sexually mature, among 

 the little red specimens so numerous on pastures and trees or 

 shrubs. The spermatozoa are pale, quite homogeneous, nearly 

 transparent, arcuate, sharp at one end, and blunt or truncate — 

 not clavate — at the other ; length l-185th of an inch, thickness 

 l-6400th. They disappear when treated with acetic acid, and 

 cannot be made to dry well ; in both these respects, as well as in 

 others, differing from the spermatozoa of insects and mammals. 

 The testis is a bunch of vesicles much like the ovary. 



Eggs. — Some of the large females, after a few days' confinement 

 in a tin box, deposited there many ova, feebly sticking together in 

 clumps often as large as the parent ticks. These eggs were 

 smooth, of a glistening chocolate colour, oval in shape, and each 

 about l-40th of an inch long and l-60th broad. Their shell 

 was composed of chitine ; its contents chiefly of corpuscles, some 

 globular, more of the same form as the shell, and presenting an 

 average length of l-500th and a breadth of l-727th of an inch ; 

 each distinct in outline, and all generally larger and more regular 

 in size than common yolk granules. The number of ova was so 

 great as to show the prodigious fecundity of these ticks, as, indeed, 

 is too well known to the flockmasters of this neighbourhood. 



Urinary Apparatus. — This is greatly developed, consisting of 

 two transparent tubes, easily recognisable by their opaque white 

 contents, having all the properties of guanine, and never showing 

 any trace of uric acid. In the more common sheep-tick, which 

 belongs to the hexapod insect-order Diptera, and is the Melophila 

 ovina of Nitzsch, and which was examined at the same time for 

 comparison, uric acid was always found. Thus these two 

 creatures, both living on the selfsame sheep, have their urinary 

 matter so essentially different. And in the excrement of every 

 insect and spider examined the same diflerence was found, 

 corresponding to the observations made on scorpions and 

 true spiders many years since by that eminent physiologist 



