348 george h. f. nuttall. 



Collecting Ticks. 



Ticks are usually collected from the hosts which they infest. These hosts may be 

 mammalia, birds, reptiles (snakes, lizards, tortoises) or amphibia (toads). They may 

 also be captured on vegetation or on the ground, although they are less frequently 

 found in this way unless they are numerous. An easy way of collecting specimens in 

 the latter case is to drag a piece of rough flannel or similar cloth (preferably white) 

 across the surface of the ground or vegetation. They promptly cling to the cloth 

 and can then be picked off and put into pill-boxes or tubes. Ornithodorus moiibata 

 will be found in native huts in the dust or mud cracks in the floor and walls, and in 

 the thatch near sleeping places. They also occur in the dust at resting places along 

 routes of travel. • 



When ticks are attached to a host, care should be taken in removing them, otherwise 

 the mouth-parts may be broken off and the specimens damaged. They are best 

 removed by seizing the base of the capitulum with a small pair of forceps and rotating 

 slightly whilst pulling it out gently. If firmly embedded, a drop of any oil smeared 

 on the tick will facilitate matters. Ticks with injured mouth-parts are usually of 

 little use for study and females thus injured frequently fail to lay eggs. Larvae are 

 removable by scraping the skin with a knife blade, their mouth-parts being smaller 

 and less deeply embedded than in the other stages. Ticks with long sharply toothed 

 hypostomes, especially species of Ixodes, are difficult to remove w^ithout injury. If 

 great difficulty is experienced in loosening the ticks from a dead host, the piece of 

 skin to which the tick is attached may be cut off and the tick subsequently removed 

 if it does not come off of itself. 



All ticks from one species of animal from one locality may be placed in the same 

 tube, but care should be taken not to mix the ticks taken from different hosts in the 

 same locality. It is especially important to keep ticks from different localities 

 separate. 



Killing and preserving ticks. — ^When possible, it is best to kill ticks by dropping them 

 into small corked glass tubes containing 25-30 per cent, alcohol to which 2-3 drops of 

 ether have been added. Ticks thus treated die with their legs extended, which 

 facilitates their examination. After 24-48 hours the specimens should be placed in 

 60 per cent, alcohol, which is the best and simplest preservative and may be used 

 directly if the weaker alcohol and ether are not available. Stronger alcohols harden 

 the specimens and render them too brittle for convenient examination ; the same 

 objection applies to formalin solutions. Failing alcohol, ticks may be preserved in 

 brandy, whiskey or gin. Too many specimens should not be crowded into a tube. 

 If alcohol is not procurable and the atmosphere is dry, the ticks may be allowed to die 

 in tubes or pill-boxes containing folded tissue paper (not cotton wool) or the specimens, 

 may be transfixed by fine entomological pins, as is commonly done wdth insects ; 

 such specimens are however very liable to injury and require careful handling and 

 packing. 



Labelling specimens. — ^It is most important that specimens should be adequately 

 labelled. Write legibly w^ith a sharp and moderately soft (H.B.) lead pencil on good 

 white paper and place the label inside the tube. State the name of the host (scientific 

 name if possible), give the date and 'place of collection and the collector s name. If 



