METHOD OF HANDLING SNAKES 649 



as they are very wild and dash themselves against the bars. A large 

 cloth bag is placed round the cage and the larvae, nymphs and adults 

 collected as they drop off; the underpan should always be removed. 

 The species parasitic on the gerbil is best studied by keeping the 

 rats in an ordinary wire trap, which is placed in a cloth bag ; the ticks 

 nearly always fix themselves on the back of the rat just above the tail, 

 sometimes also about the face. Hooker mentions a species of Haeina- 

 physalis which is parasitic on quails and other birds in the Southern 

 States of America. It seems probable that this tick passes its first 

 moult on the host. If this proves to be the case this is the first 

 example of the occurrence of such a habit among the species of Haema- 

 phy sails. 



Ticks of the genus Aponomma are peculiar to reptiles, and most of 

 the common snakes and larger lizards are infested with them. In Madras 

 there are two species, A. gervaisi and A. pattoni, 



both of which may be collected in all their stages from Genus Aponomma : 

 . , . . . . . . A. gervaisi, the com- 



the rat snake, Zamenis mucosus; A. gervaisi is also snake tick 



common on the lizard, Varanus bengalensis. These 

 large lizards are very easily kept in one of the iron cages, and can be 

 fed on pieces of raw meat ; all the stages of the ticks are recovered 

 by placing the cage in a bag. On the lizard the majority of the ticks 

 attach themselves around the base of the tail, though the larvae and 

 nymphs may be found attached to the eyelids. The larvae and nymphs 

 may remain on the host for several weeks, and the females for months, 

 before they drop off; the males have been found to remain on the 

 host for more than a year, and several times a lizard has been caught 

 with a number of dead males still attached to its skin. 



In order to study the life histories of the species parasitic on snakes it 

 is necessary to know how to handle these animals. In India the snake 

 catcher usually brings the snakes in an earthenware 

 jar, the mouth of which is covered with a cloth, and it and ^ M ^ n ^ snakes 



is impossible to obtain the ticks if the snakes are left 

 in these vessels. The snake must be examined to see whether it har- 

 bours ticks or not, and must be transferred to a cage suitable for the 

 purpose of collecting the ticks as they drop off. The simplest way to 

 get hold of the snake is to turn it out of the jar on to an open piece 

 of ground and to catch it as follows : The worker and his assistant and 

 the snake catcher should each be armed with a stick a yard and 

 a half long, forked at one end and flat at the other. The head of the 

 snake is compressed between the arms of the fork, and then grasped 

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