194 LIFE, IN ITS INTERMEDIATE FORMS. 
minute animals. Scarlet is their favourite livery, and it 
often has the appearance of satin or velvet. The Water- 
mites (Hydrachna) are merry little creatures that scuttle 
along through the water of our pools, looking like tiny 
globules of red sealing-wax. The Cheese-mite (Siro do- 
mesticus ) is so common, that possibly, gentle reader, you 
may have emulated the feats of Samson, slaying thousands 
at a time, and that with a jaw-bone. If you are fond of 
dogs or of cattle, you have also, doubtless, made the ac- 
quaintance of a vile creature called a Tick (Ixodes), which 
attaches itself to the poor brutes in some spot inaccessible 
to their efforts — such as behind the ears, or at the root 
of the tail — and then, plunging a beak of sharp horny 
lancets into tho flesh, sucks the blood, till its own body is 
gorged and swollen from the size of a hemp-seed to that 
of a horse-bean, when it drops off to make room for another 
bloodthirsty sucker. And, finally, some of these crea- 
tures (Sarcoptes) of minute dimensions, burrowing beneath 
the skin, become the cause of certain highly infectious 
cutaneous diseases, which are unhappily too common where 
cleanliness is neglected. 
