BY C. J. POUND, F.K.M.S. 29' 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



According to Cooper Curtice, the original home of the cattle 

 tick is in Northern Africa. This assumption he bases upon the fact 

 of having compared ticks taken from Egyptian Cattle with I.rodis 

 hons, and finding no specific difference between the males and 

 females recei^ ed from Egypt and the two sexes of Lnnlcs hori.^, and, 

 he adds, that in stocking America " cattle were introduced from at 

 least two directions — one from Northern Europe into the Northern 

 half of the States, the other from Spain, through the West 

 Indies, into Mexico and the Spanish settlements of North and 

 South America. The presence of the tick in Spain is not 

 known, but on account of the latters old-time relation with 

 Northern Africa it may be suspected there." 



Again, Curtice says : — " It is in view of the exact specific 

 identity of our cattle tick in the States with that from Egypt, 

 and the method by which the Southern States cattle have been 

 introduced in the early Spanish invasions, and from the fact 

 that the tick completes itsdevelopement from the six-footed stage 

 to the adult on cattle, that it seems to me that the oonimon 

 cattle tick of the Southern States is an introduced species, having 

 been introduced early in the sixteenth centry into the Spanish 

 settlement of Ameiica. The species then spread with the cattle- 

 and other agencies into all those parts where the climate and 

 conditions were suitable. 



We must not forget, in speaking of the distril»ution of an 

 animal, to mention not only those places in which it existed 

 originally, but those where it had been introduced and become 

 thoroughly acclimatised. There can be no doubt whatever that 

 the cattle tick is not indigenous to Australia, but that it was intro- 

 duced through some of the vessels trading between Java, Batavia, 

 and the Straits Settlement and Port l>arwin. Some people 

 believe that the tick was introduced into Australia from India or 

 Batavia with tlie buffaloes. Whether this is correct or not, it is 

 interesting to know that of the numerous specimens of ticks 

 obtained from districts permanently infested with cattle ticks, 

 and forwarded to the Stock Institute for examination, I have 

 failed to discover evtn one that correspond ^\ith the true l.inik'H 



hiiiis. 



