Annals of tile Transvaal Museum. 
79 
infested fowl-house this loss is often so great as to cause fowls to die in 
large numbers. Travellers in the Middle Ages frequently referred to this 
tick as causing sickness, and even death, to human beings in Persia. In 
fact it frequently became so numerous in houses in that country as to 
make it necessary for entire villages to move and construct new dwellings 
elsewhere. 
ARGAS VESPERTILIONIS, LATREILLE. 
Carios vespertilionis, Latreille (1796). 
Caris vespertilionis , Latreille (1804). 
Argas fischeri , Audouin (1827). 
Argas pipistrellce, Audouin (1832). 
Caris vespertilionis , Gervais (1844). 
Cans elliptica, Kolenati (1857). 
Caris longimana, Kolenati (1857). 
Caris decussata , Kolenati (1857). 
Caris inermis , .Kolenati (1857). 
Argas fischeri , George (1876). 
Argas pipistrellce, Westwood (1877). 
Argas vespertilionis (Latreille) (Neumann, 1896). 
. Plate I, figures li to p ; Plate II, figures p to w. 
Female {1 , m). — Body nearly circular, often somewhat wider than 
long (9.5 mm. wide by 8.5 mm. long) ; posterior edge in some cases 
nearly straight ; anterior edge terminating in a point and produced 
into a narrow hood covering the rostrum ; colour dark greyish blue 
when fully engorged, when not it is yellowish brown, lighter about the 
edges ; legs light brow-n ; integument roughened with numerous 
papillae ; on the margin a border of elongate, quadrangular plates 
each vdth a short hair (I, o) ; irregularly disposed, narrower 
anteriorly ; numerous shiny pits on the dorsal surface near the anterior 
third, two pits far apart, in front of them another pair further apart 
and another pair still more anterior and further apart, two row r s of 
small pits extending anteriorly between these large pits ; from 
posterior pair of pits a Y-shaped groove opening anteriorly and 
continued posteriorly by a single groove to posterior third ; on each 
side of this single groove is a very large deep pit with a smaller one 
more anterior, a wdde row, two or three deep, of shiny pits extending 
along inner edge of margin, and from this numerous row-s of pits, 
alternately long and short, extending inwards as if radiating from 
the centre. Central surface with a pair of w r ell marked genital 
grooves and a narrow marginal groove with pits in their depth ; 
radiating rows of pits as on dorsal surface. Genital pore elongate 
transversely and narrow, opposite posterior margin of Coxae I ; anus 
just posterior to Coxae IV, elliptical, no spines surrounding it, but 
six spines on the edge of each valve ; stigmatic plates uniform, 
opposite Coxae IV. Rostrum concealed under dorsal hood and set in 
a pit, into wTiich it can be retracted ; base rectangular, much larger 
than wide ; hypostome, conical, a single row T of sharp teeth extending 
along the lateral edges, increasing in size from anterior to posterior 
part; mandibles (II, s) very elongate and narrow, at least twice as 
long as those of male, process of inner apophysis lacking, outer 
apophysis bidentate ; palpi very short, article I somewhat longer than 
