FEEDING APPARATUS. 151 
inside, now hardish, was red, as if coloured with the blood they had 
sucked. The shape a thick oval, rather over three-eighths of an inch 
long by a quarter broad, and from over an eighth to somewhat under a 
quarter of an inch in thickness. The description of Dr. Hart, that 
when trod upon they go off pop, and are found to be filled with black 
blood, conveys an only too graphically correct description of the con- 
dition of the truly disgusting female Tick. 
The colour of the specimens could not be judged of, after long 
soaking in preservative fluid, as a guide to what it was in life. But 
now, in the case of the large-developed females, it is a rich full deep 
red; the smaller specimens, and the smallest of all especially, have 
more variety of tint, some being of much lighter red, some few of an 
almost orange or ochre tint. The very flat specimens (? young males) 
were of a kind of rather pale brownish colour. 
All the specimens were advanced to the stage of possessing eight 
legs,—in the case of the little ones, very long in proportion to the size 
of their bodies, giving at a glance the impression of their activity ; 
whilst those of the adult females stuck out from the side of their 
inflated bodies, as if movement would be matter of much difficulty. 
Some of the Ticks still held attached to their mouth-apparatus the 
piece of skin which they had torn away on removal. The smallest of 
those which I noticed so furnished was one-eighth of an inch in 
length, and gave a very nice example of their method of feeding. The 
two side processes (maxillary palpi) were held well apart by the piece 
of skin, which was still so firmly retained by the barbed rostrum that 
it was only by holding the Tick so securely as to crush it in, and 
pulling steadily at the bit of skin, that I was able with some difficulty 
to remove it. But, on clearing it away, the barbed rostrum (the 
‘“‘maxillo-labial dart’’), and its pair of ‘‘chelifers,” with their terminal 
hooks, which, together with the dart, form the instrument for pene- 
trating the skin, were excellently observable with a one-inch micro- 
scopic power, the maxillary palpi being also well displayed. 
The apparatus was in excellent accordance with the figure of the 
under side of the rostrum of the [vodes ricinus (after Delafond), given 
at p. 96 of Drs. Fleming and Neumann’s ‘ Animal Parasites,’ previously 
referred to. The only point which I could not perfectly ascertain was 
the number of rows of recurved teeth or barbs beneath the rostrum. 
There was certainly a single row near the edge on each side of the 
centre; but there were, between these, three rows of some raised forma- 
tion; altogether forming, when viewed with a one-inch object-glass, a 
kind of long patch of five rows, one central, two on each side along 
part of the under side of the rostrum. With the quarter-inch glass 
the shape of the recurved row on each side showed well, but I was 
not able to ascertain the nature of the three rows of intermediate 
processes. 
