
A CHAPTER ON MITES. 367 
The larva (though there is, probably, a still earlier hexa- 
podous stage) of this Sarcoptid has an elongated, oblong, 
flattened body, with four short legs, provided with a few 
bristle-like hairs, and ending in a stalked sucker, by aid of 
which the mite is enabled to walk over smooth, hard sur- 
faces. The body is square at the end, with a slight median 
indentation, and four long bristles of equal length. They 
remained motionless in the groove on the barb of the 
feather, and when removed. seemed very inert and sluggish. 
A succeeding stage of this, mite, which may be called the 
pupal, is represented on Plate 6, fig. 2. It is considerably 
smaller than the larva (all the figures of this sarcoptid being 
rawn to one scale by Prof. A. M. Edwards, and magni- 
fied 115 diameters), and looks somewhat like the adult, the 
body having become shorter and broader. It is perhaps the 
pupa, or nymph. The adult (Pl. 6, fig. 3) is a most singu- 
lar form, its body being rudely ovate, with the head sunken . 
between the fore legs, which are considerably smaller than 
the second. pair, while the third pair are twice as large as 
the second pair, and directed backwards, and the fourth 
pair are very small, not reaching the extremity of the body, 
Which is deeply cleft, and supports four long bristles on 
each side of the cleft, while other bristles are attached to the 
legs and body, giving the creature, originally ill-shapen, a 
haggard, unkempt appearance. The two stigmata, or breath- 
ing pores, open near the cleft in the end of the body, and 
the external opening of the oviduct is situated .between the 
largest or third pair of legs. No males were observed. 
In a Species of Acarus (Tyroglyphus) , somewhat like the 
Cheese-inite, which we have alive at the time of writing, in 
a box containing the remains of a Lucanus larva, which 
they seem to have. consumed, as both young and old are 
_ Swarming there by myriads, the young are oval and like 
the adults, except that they are six-legged, the fourth pair 
Browing out after a succeeding moult. 
Such is a brief summary of what has been generally 
















