4 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 671. 
stockings and penetrate the skin about the ankles, frequently below 
the shoe tops, and are usually found most numerous below the knee. 
According to;the late Dr. John Hamilton, a physician as well as 
entomologist, the harvest mites enter the larger sweat tubes or pores 
of the skin, and as these tubes are very tortuous, the progress of the 
mites is necessarily slow, from 18 to 36 hours being required for. 
them to reach the end. When the lesions caused by these mites are 
unusually numerous, the sufferer becomes feverish, and sleep is much 
disturbed. Sometimes the afflicted one becomes frantic and lacer- 
ates his flesh by too vigorous and frequent scratching. Erysipelas is 
known to follow severe attacks, and death resulting from blood poi- 
soning is recorded. These more serious results of infestation are, 
however, exceptional and, as with the fatalities which in rare cases 
follow the ordinarily merely painful or annoying ‘‘bites”’ of many 
insects, undoubtedly point to an impurity of the blood. 
HABITAT. 
Harvest mites are most abundant in damp locations, along the 
borders of streams and other bodies of water, and on the edges of 
forest and woodland. They occur also on trees and shrubbery, evi- 
dently infesting the lower surface of the leaves, from which they drop 
off when these are rudely shaken, and find lodgment on the neck or 
other exposed parts of the body. Riley describes ‘‘ Leptus ameri- 
canus”’ as affecting chiefly the scalp and armpits. In places infested 
by harvest mites it is a matter of danger to sit down or li in the grass 
and herbage for any length of time, as the mites will then have easy 
access to almost any portion of the body. As a rule these creatures 
appear to be dependent on the shade and not to live in the direct sun- 
light, but some forms occur in sunny locations. 
These mites are most abundant and troublesome in the Tecioiea 
and become less numerous as we go northward. They are generally 
distributed in the Gulf States, up the Mississippi River to Missouri and 
Illinois, and through the Atlantic Coast States to northern New Jer- 
sey. They appear to be unknown in New York and New England, 
or north of latitude 40° in the East. 
Trouble from chiggers has also been reported in portions of Ten- 
nessee and practically throughout the State of Ohio, because we have 
record of injury as far north as Sandusky, which is on Lake Erie, 
Lima, in the northern part of the State, Cincinnati, and Columbus. 
Reports that these creatures have also been found in other localities 
may and may not be true at the same time, since with the cultiva- 
tion of the soil and the destruction of-wild bushes and other places 
of harbor they have practically disappeared. There are reports also 
of the occurrence of chiggers at Horicon, Wis., and La Fayette, Ind., 
in Minnesota, and at Belvidere, S. Dak. 
