320 The Diseases of Animats 
soap and warm, soft water and allowing it to remain 
for half an hour before washing off, is usually efficient 
A solution made by boiling two ounces of stavesacre 
seeds in one quart of water is also excellent. 
FLEAS 
These insects can be easily recognized by their ability 
to jump. They are often found on cats and on long- 
haired (sometimes on short-haired) dogs. Any of the 
remedies for lice are efficient in destroying fleas. The 
quarters occupied by the infested animal should be 
disinfected. 
SCAB OF SHEEP AND CATTLE 
Seab in eattle, often called Texas- or range-itch, 
is found mostly among animals that are raised on the 
great. plains of the West. The disease is caused by a 
very small iteh mite, which lives on the surface and 
causes a scurfy and seabby condition of the skin, the 
mites living and reproducing under these seabs. The 
mites attacking cattle and sheep are different in kind, 
but they cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. 
The cattle mite does not attack other animals, except 
possibly temporarily, and then it does not reproduce. 
The same rule holds for the sheep mite. 
If some of the scabs and erusts at the edge of an 
area affected with scab are removed, placed in a clean 
dry glass bottle and allowed to remain for a few hours, 
minute white specks, barely visible to the naked eye, 
ean be seen moving on the inside of the glass; these 
