148 Remarks on some Parasites 



It must not be lost sight of, that amongst some fifty insects 

 found on the two ears, we can scarcely suppose some of them 

 should not be mature, if they belonged to the family of Acarea. 

 This view led me to seek carefully for some ova beneath the skin, 

 or the shells attached to the hairs ; yet nothing was found beyond 

 portions of the inflammatory exudation carried up by the young 

 hairs, or adherent where the hairs had touched the irritated sur- 

 faces ; nor was any trace of an ovum found in the bodies of those 

 cut open or crushed under the dissecting microscope ; though in the 

 mass of granular matter, four small nuclear-looking and granular 

 masses, larger and more firm than the rest of the large granules, 

 were found, two on opposite sides of the lower half of the abdomen, 

 but what they were it was impossible to say correctly. If the 

 foregoing view be correct, amongst some of the ova we may expect 

 the male to be reproduced. Again, we have no evidence they were 

 not, in the full sense of the word, adventitious — just passing one 

 part of their Hves in a luxurious feast ; yet, if they belong to the 

 Ixodeae, may we not suppose either that one or more females at- 

 tached themselves to the bat, and then gave birth to the colonies, 

 for they are described as depositing or producing by a continuous 

 pent of many days, upwards of a thousand glutinous eggs (?). Yet 

 the gestative state of the Ixodes is said to be continued by the insect 

 detaching itself and falling to the ground for completion; so this 

 hardly admits of its performance on the bat. 



The singularly peculiar, if not almost unique character of the 

 generative act of the Ixodidae, described by Professor Gene, of 

 Milan, and translated in abstract by Mr. A. Tulk, in the ' Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History,' vol. xviii., to which I beg 

 reference for those interested in the history of these minute 

 creatures, and which will amply repay a perusal, I can only in 

 part quote here. In brief it may be stated, the male inserts its 

 rostrum into the orifice, situated upon the middle of the sternum, 

 between the coxae of the last pair of legs. Mr. Tulk points out 

 the " very striking relation, if only approximative in kind, between 

 the organ employed by the male Ixodes to copulate with the female, 

 and the palpi as ministering to similar uses in the Araneides, or true 

 spiders." That the female afterwards depresses upon the sternum 

 all the palpi that compose the rostrum, when there is seen to be 

 " protruded from the duo-cephalic plate, a turgid vesicle," terminated 

 by two lobes, "vesica biloba," having at the apex a most minute 

 aperture. " When this organ has been well dilated, so as to pass 

 beyond the rostral palpi, the animal erects the pectoral canal, and 

 gives exit to the oviduct," and "proceeds at once to disemburden 

 itself, between the lobes of the vesica. This clasps, compresses, 

 and appears as if sucking the oviduct for a few seconds ; but often 

 the oviduct is retracted, and re-enters the sternum, leaving an egg 



