HABITS AND PECULIARITIES O# SOM® SOUTH AFRICAN TICKS. 287 
animal, and may remain many nionths—eveh & year. In about five days 
he is ready to mate, and exhibits his inclination by erecting his body and 
waving his limbs should a female approach close to him. The female is 
loth to attach except by a sexually mature male, and she appears not to 
feed to repletion until fertilised. After finding a mate she takes from 
six and a half to fifteen days or more to distend herself with blood. 
A, hebreeum appears to require a warm, moderately humid climate: it 
thrives best in veld shaded by high bushes, and quite fails to establish 
itself in open low grass veld and in the Karroo, Its occurrence in 
Cape Colony is restricted to the southern and south-eastern districts, 
where there is a summer rainfail. Shade seems necessary to protect its 
quiescent stages from desiccation. The eggs are particularly sensitive, 
and owing to difficulty in maintaining the proper degree of humidity in 
closed dishes exposed to heat, most of the eggs which we attempted to 
force in.the incubator soon perished. 
In our experience it is quite common to find unfed larve, nymphs, 
and adults still alive and vigorous after four to six months’ confinement 
in cork-stoppered tubes. We have records of larve and nymphs living 
eight months and then being fed, and a record of an adult which was alive 
fourteen months after it had fed as a nymph. The life-cycle must 
ordinarily occupy a full year or more. This species does not at once 
desert dead animals, but most of the specimens in all stages, if they have 
fed only a little, detach and wander away in the course of a few days, and 
such ticks may live a month or more and then attach to other animals. 
The nymph and adult rest in the ground when awaiting the host. 
A. variegatum is closely allied to A. hebreum. It is found in 
Manicaland (Rhodesia), and is occasionally seen on cattle from Mada- 
gascar, We have tried to rear it once only. The eggs took the same 
time to hatch, and the jarve and nymphs the same time to feed and 
moult as those of A. hebreuwm would have taken under the same con- 
ditions. Our specimens have come from cattle, horses, and goats. The 
third species, A. marmoreum, is less closely related to A. hebrawm. Like 
the other two, it leaves its hosts to moult. It has been collected near 
Capetown in the winter rainfall area, in the dry Karroo, and in the 
south-eastern districts ; hence it appears much less sensitive to heat and 
drought than A. hebreeum. Its choice of hosts, however, is most peculiar, 
and probably accounts for the comparative rarity of the species. The 
common host of the adult is the tortoise, and all our specimens have come 
from this reptile, except a few from snakes of one kind or another. On 
several occasions we have applied adults to the ox and goat, but the only 
ones that have bitten have: been partly fed ones torn from a tortoise. 
The larva and nymph are not so particular ; both feed readily on the 
ox and the goat as well as the tortoise. The larva also freely attacks 
birds of some kinds. A dying quail was once brought to me with its head 
literally covered with engorged larve. A small lizard, confined in a jar 
with hungry larve, was attacked with avidity ; but it died twelve days 
later without any of the parasites having become fully distended. That 
the adult female can ordinarily feed to repletion on a snake is doubtful. 
When fully engorged a well-developed female measures 25 mm. to 33 mm. 
in length, and 20 mm. or more in breadth, and one would almost surely be 
brushed off or crushed during its growth were the snake to move about 
very much. But the helpless tortoise is a safe host, and the retraction of 
the body wishin the shell may often suflice to protect the ticks from bird 
