506 CLASS ARACHNIDA. 



longer than the sucker, straight, and without threads at the 

 end — by their eyes, which are two in number, and by their 

 two anterior feet being longer than the others. 



Sometimes these mites with eight feet and without pincers 

 have no perceptible eyes. Their palpi are either anterior and 

 advanced, but in the form of valvules, widened or dilated 

 towards the end, serving as a sheath to the sucker, or inferior. 

 The pieces of the sucker are corneous, very hard, and denti- 

 culated. The body is clothed with a coriaceous skin, or has, 

 at least in front, a scaly plate. 



These tics are parasites, gorge themselves with the blood 

 of several vertebrated animals, and being at first very flatted, 

 acquire by suction a very great volume and a vesicular form. 

 They are round or oval. 



Ixodes, Lat., Fab. Cynorcesthes, Hermn,, 



Whose palpi sheath the sucker, and form with it an advanced, 

 short, and truncated beak, a little dilated at the end. 



The ixodes frequent thick woods, hook themselves to plants 

 of no great elevation by the two anterior feet, and keep the 

 others extended. They attach themselves to dogs, oxen, 

 horses, and other quadrupeds, and even to tortoises, and en- 

 gage their sucker so deeply in the flesh, that they cannot be 

 detached from it but by force, and removing a portion of the 

 flesh which adheres to the sucker. They lay a prodigious 

 quantity of eggs, and through the mouth, according to M. 

 Chabrier, Their multiplication on one ox or horse is some- 

 times so great, that these animals perish from exhaustion. 

 Their tarsi are terminated by two hooks, inserted on a pallet, 

 or united at their base by a common pedicle. 



It would seem that the ancients designated these arachnides 

 under the name of ?'/c27?z^9. The French huntsmen give the 

 term louvette to the species which fixes on the dog, or the 

 following, 



