92 Biology 



Osborn, 1896 ; Brandes, 1897. Young birds are the chief sufferers, 

 and at times it is impossible to raise them owing to the pest. 

 Schellack (1908, p. 487) writes that reflexus attacks pigeons especially 

 on naked parts of the skin, beneath the wings and about the anus. 



Effects of the bite of Argas reflexus on man and animals. 



When numerous, they may, through their bites, cause the death of 

 pigeons. They have been observed to wander into chicken-houses and 

 dwellings. They do not seem to annoy chickens, but they occasionally 

 attack man and cause much trouble. Easpail (1839) attributed a severe 

 erythematous eruption on a child's neck to the bites of this species, 

 consequent on his going into a pigeon-coop. Boschulte (1860) describes 

 the case of a family, several members of which were bitten by reflexus, 

 only pain and slight swelling following in all cases excepting that of an 

 old man. The latter was bitten on the lower part of the thigh, with 

 the result that a deep circular suppurating wound about the size of the 

 head of a pin marked the spot where he had been bitten. There was 

 extensive oedematous swelling and redness of the surrounding parts. 

 Boschulte allowed himself to be bitten by reflexus. The pain was like 

 that of a mosquito-bite. A small drop of coagulated blood subsequently 

 covered the puncture. Nothing especial was noticed, and three days 

 later the wound had healed. Ten days after he had been bitten the 

 spot began to itch and showed a nodular swelling, which grew red and 

 increased to the size of a pock. No exudation of serum occurred, but 

 the itching was very annoying. This subsided after six days, a small 

 scab was cast off at the point bitten, and the skin resumed its normal 

 appearance. Boschulte (1879) reported, nearly twenty years later, that 

 the place where he had been bitten still showed a sharply-defined 

 circular flattened elevation with a central cicatrix, and that in the 

 interim several similar, but smaller, elevations had appeared in its 

 vicinity. 



Taschenberg (1873) wrote that reflexus attacked some children in 

 Friedeberg a. d. Saale. In a later paper, Taschenberg (1880, p. 153) 

 states that in all cases where reflexus has attacked human beings, the 

 latter slept in rooms adjoining pigeon-coops. The bites occur chiefly 

 on the hands and feet and appear as small red points which cause much 

 itching, extending up the limb. A bite on the hand produced itching 

 up to the shoulder, a bite on the foot itching up to the hip and back, 

 there being less irritation about the bite itself. Scratching aggravates 



