Common Insect Enemies 127 



wild animals and birds. Among the diseases that ticks carry 

 is Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which is transferred from 

 certain species of rabbits, and possibly other rodents, to 

 hunters, trappers, and campers who are unfortunate enough 

 to get bitten by ticks that had been living on diseased animals. 



Although the various spotted fevers have not yet reached 

 epidemic proportions, there is always the possibility that a 

 terrible epidemic might break out at any time, for many 

 species of animals and birds are reservoirs of these diseases, 

 and these animals all have ticks which can, if given a chance, 

 puncture your skin and inject the deadly virus. The poten- 

 tialities of the situation are quite evident from the fact that 

 the American dog tick can transmit the eastern strain of 

 spotted fever. The moral is : get rid of the ticks. This is not 

 too difficult. Premises of residences, parks, and camp sites 

 can be freed from this tick by spraying the vegetation with a 

 Vi % DDT emulsion at the rate of 3 pounds of DDT per 

 acre. However, for direct application to infested animals, 

 DDT dusts and dips have not proved as effective as the older 

 rotenone preparations. 



As far as you are concerned, the American dog tick may 

 be of little interest, for the common tick of dogs is the brown 

 dog tick. Fortunately, this tick can be controlled very nicely 

 with DDT. In fact, treatment of the animal and the in- 

 fested buildings for the control of fleas will also control the 

 brown dog tick. So just use the 10% DDT powder on the 

 animals and the spray or powder around the house and 

 everything will be under control. But when treating build- 

 ings, be sure to dust or spray the cracks and crevices around 

 baseboards, for these provide good hiding places for ticks. 



We can't go into a lot of details for the control of all 

 kinds of ticks, but horse lovers might be interested in the 



