
A CHAPTER ON MITES. 265 
readers of our natural history text-books learn from their 
pages any definite facts regarding the affinities of these hum- 
ble ereatures, their organization, and the singular metamor- 
phosis a few have been known to pass through. We shall 
only attempt in the present article to indicate a few of the 
typical forms of mites, and sketch, with too slight a knowl- 
edge to speak with much authority, an imperfect picture of 
their appearance and modes of living. 
Mites are lowly organized Arachnids. This order of in- 
sects is divided into the Spiders, the Scorpions, the Harvest- 
men and the Mites (Acarina). They have a rounded oval 
body, without the usual division between the head-thorax 
aud abdomen, observable in spiders; the head, thorax, and 
abdomen being ‘merged in a single mass. There are four 
pairs of legs, and the mouth- Fig. 61. 
parts consist, as seen in the ad- 
joining figure of a young tick 
(Fig. 61, young Ixodes albipic- 
fus Pack.*), of a pair of max- 
illie (c), which in the adult, 
terminates in a two or three- 
Jointed palpus, or feeler ; a pair 
of mandibles (b), often covered ` 
With several rows of fine teeth, ~ 
and ending in three or four ~ | 
larger hooks, and a serrated 
labium (a). These parts form a beak which the mite, or 
tick, insinuates into the flesh of its host, upon the blood of 
Which it subsists. While many of the mites are parasitic on 
_-4nimals, some are known to devour the eggs of insects and 

_ other mites, thrusting their beaks into the egg and sucking 



.. the contents, We have seen the mite (Nothrus) figured on 
the following page (Fig. 62) busily engaged in destroying the 
. . 9Egs of the Canker worm, and Dr. Shimer has observed the 
— Acarus? malus sucking the eggs of the Chinch bug. While 
Hee 2), Pe eee qum 2 ici dx 
Msn t t = j ? 5 i 
p he 


