148 Veterinary Medicine. 



This family is characterized by soft hairy integuments, bright 

 color, rostrum as a conical sucker formed by the coalesence of 

 the maxillae with the lower labium, a pair of delicate styliform 

 chelifera, exceptionally hooked inward, palpi in six segments, the 

 fifth bearing a booklet. 



Trombidium Holosericeum. Silky T. Harvest Mite. 

 Red Beast. Bright scarlet color, abdomen almost square, nar- 

 rowed behind, notched in the median line, eyes pediculated, body 

 downy, belly and feet bristly. Length of mature 1.35 mm. ; of 

 larva 0.4 mm. 



This is a widespread species in Europe found especially in 

 warm sheltered localities, gardens, orchards, etc. , where it lives 

 on the vegetation. The mature insect is harmless but the hexa- 

 pod larva gets on the skin of man and beast, burrowing under 

 the epidermis and causing papular (red) elevations accompanied 

 by intense itching. In man they prefer the clothed surface, 

 where clothing is tight (under suspenders, belts, garters) and in 

 animals the feet, limbs and, in the case of the herbivora, the 

 muzzle especially suffer. They are common on the small rodents, 

 dogs, cats, horses, cattle, sheep and birds and probably no domes- 

 tic animal is entirely immune from them. The name harvest mite 

 implies that they are especially troublesome late in the season, 

 but much depends on latitude as in Southern Europe and in 

 sheltered warm situations they may appear early in July. Their 

 late appearance is to be partly attributed to the necessity for the 

 production of a new brood of larva which alone prove predaceous. 

 They are often found singly or in clusters around the root of a 

 hair or at the opening of a sweat gland and they may avail of 

 such openings to penetrate the skin. 



Trombidium Americana. Jigger. In the Southern and 

 Western United States and in warm localities in the middle and 

 northern a trombidium differing from the European in its dull, 

 brick-red color, attacks animals and men in the same manner, 

 producing similar symptoms. It is familiarly known as the jigger, 

 having been confounded with the chigoe sarcopsylla, the burrow- 

 ing flea of the West Indies. 



Trombidium Fuliginosum. Megnin adduces the smoky 

 trombidium as occurring in Europe and attacking mammals in 

 company with the scarlet, silky species. 



