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SUBORDER MALLOPHAGA. 191 
Mr. E. W. Parker, in Poultry World, gives a good idea of how indif- 
ferent one may be. He says: 
In July and August especially (but at all times of the year) lice abound more than at 
any other time, and chicks will become infested with them unless great care is taken. 
Many persons wonder why their young chicks droop and die, mope around for a week 
or two, all the time getting thinner and weaker, finally become unable to stand, and 
die—these persons claiming all the time that ‘lice is not the cause of it” because 
they have searched under the wing for the red or yellow louse, on tle head for the 
large head louse, and in fact have looked them from top to bottom for parasites and 
have found none. I wonder if they have ever looked on the throat, or at the side 
below the ears, for the large head louse. I wonder if it entered into the brain of such 
breeders that the head louse could destroy the life of chicks from two to six weeks 
old by sucking the lifeblood from the throat and under the head. If it has not, I 
can tell them that such is the case, and I say without fear of contradiction that when 
the chick appears weak, growing weaker and thinner, the skin seems to shrink upon 
the body, and there is a slimy discharge from the body, and when the chick eats it 
is usually with difficulty, and as: the sapposed disease advances it seems almost 
impossible for the chick to swallow, finally refusing to eat; when any or all of these 
symptoms appear then examine the underpart of the head and the throat and at 
the sides for the head louse, and nine times out of ten he will be found snugly at home 
among the down or sprouting feathers; then apply two-thirds glycerin, one-third 
carbolic acid, and five times as much water as the above mixture. 
The order may readily be separated into two families upon characters 
a part of which have already been mentioned, namely, the structure of 
the mouth parts and the feet. The latter, which is the most readily 
observed, can be easily told from the mode of locomotion, the members 
of the first group being incapable ofrapid movement, but well adapted 
to clinging to the hairs or feathers, the latter running freely and swiftly, 
but having less power to clasp. 
Family PHILOPTERID. 
Infesting horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, pigeons, 
ducks, ete. 
The members of this family have the mouth parts on the under side 
of the head. Mandibles strong; maxille wanting; tarsi short, of one 
_or two joints, the claw meeting a tooth at the apex of the tibia; meso- 
thorax apparently wanting; abdomen having nine segments. 
The group is a large one, the species being so numerous that there is 
scarcely a bird but harbors one, and sometimes several, species of this 
family. 
The genera are, for the most part, easily separated; Docophorus, by 
_ the presence of a movable appendage (trabecula) in front of the anten- 
ne; Nirmus, by the presence of an immovable tooth in front of the 
antenne and the generally entire terminal segment of the abdomen of 
the female. Goniocotes and Goniodes are robust forms, usually with 
large heads strongly curved in front. They differ by the former having 
simple antenne in both sexes, while in the latter they are modified in 
the male. The former are also usually much the smaller. In Lipeurus 
the body is generally long and slender, the antenne of the males large 
