66 ANIMAL PAEASITES. 



dium posterius retractum ; abdomen etiam testa, in cujtis 2 lacu- 

 nis porus genitalis et poms ani aperiuntur, obtectum. Pedes 

 breves validi, unguiculati, pileati, in juventute 6 ; palpi breves et 

 fusiformes ; mandibulaK 2 ; labia ad forficum moduin instruct a. 

 Ore/ana manducatoria omnino retracta et occulta. Habitant : in 

 nidulis inter muscos, quibus pro pabulo utuntur, nisi sanguinem 

 animalium, tanquam pabulum hauriunt. 



Sub-family LEPTUS = Grass-mites. 



Pedes 6 (?) ; corpus molle, intumidam ; palpi magni, liberi ; 

 rostellum ex mandibulis et labiis compositum ; oculi 2. 



Leptus autumnalis. (Tab. IX, fig. 8.) 



Rostellum nee setosum } nee denticulatum ; abdomen setosum. 

 Color e ruber, unde nomen Scabiei inde exorta> {( Rouget. Oculi 2. 

 Habitat : tempore pr&sertim autumnali in frumentorum stipulis ac 

 her bis, in arborum (ex. c. Ribes grossularice) foliis et baccis, unde 

 transit ad manus et corpus non obtectum hominis (ex. c. messo- 

 ris), quas perforat et per aliquot tempus incolit. Hieme inter 

 muscos habitare videlur. 



Yon Siebold thinks that the hexapod mite is only the young 

 state of one which becomes octopod after changing its skin, and 

 which is parasitic during its young state, the mature condition 

 of which we do not exactly know. One of the first observers of 

 its wandering upon man appears to have been Janson ; the best 

 statement, in a practical point of view, has recently been given 

 by Jahn, of Meningen, upon whose published and epistolary 

 communications I depend here. In the autumn the mites in 

 question keep in dry grass, in corn which is ready to cut, and at 

 the time of the ripening of the gooseberries, upon the gooseberry 

 bushes. Thence they get upon the skin of men, who brush past 

 their places of abode. Thus, for example, they settle in masses 

 upon the stockings of women and children, when they have 

 visited the gooseberry garden early in the morning, and bore 

 into the human skin only with the head, in the same way as the 

 Ixodes. They there form yellowish-red points in the skin, and 

 may be easily detected by the practised eye, as Professor 

 Emmerich observed in his own children. By their immigration 

 they produce little swellings, papulae, impetiginous pustules, or 

 flat and innocuous sores, upon and in which the yellowish-red 

 parasite sits in the form of a small point of the size of a pin's 



