176 
Notes on Ticks 
and it is interesting to find that it agrees in structure and habits with 
what was to be expected according to the theory advanced by me in the 
second paper I have referred to. 
Mr Evans writes that he found the young pigeons in the nests at 
Dunipace had many of the ticks (nymphs and females) upon them, 
chiefly attached about the head and anus. On removing some three or 
four nests and the young birds they contained, he collected as much as 
he could of the debris and filth from beneath the nests, placed it in a 
paper bag and examined it in the open by spreading it out on a sheet 
of white paper exposed to the sun’s rays. Apart from fleas and other 
creatures, he succeeded in collecting about 100 ticks from amongst the 
rubbish, i.e., 3 cT s, 4 gorged $ s, many unfed $ s and o s, and a few 
larvae of I. caledonicus. In only one case, as noted above, were the sexes 
found in copula. 
It is interesting to record, moreover, that Mr Evans has, more 
recently, sent me for determmation 1 $ and 60 s (unfed and replete) 
of I. caledonicus which he found on a dead starling, in the Isle of May, 
Fife, Scotland, in May, 1911. 
In common with hexagonus, canisuga, putus and vespertilionis, the 
male of caledonicus is characterised by its lai-ge size, compared to the 
unfed female, by the relatively small capitulum, by the small size of the 
pads on the feet, whilst the unarmed hypostome recalls the condition 
observed in putus and vespertilionis. The tick has other points of 
affinity with several of these species: the capitulum resembles that of 
vespertilionis but for the palps, which are not clavate; it is the only 
species of Ixodes other than vespertilionis, in which the median ventral 
plate is separated from the anal plate by the interposition of the anterior 
portion of the adanal plates; the character of the palps (excavate) and 
the short legs of caledonicus ^ give it an intermediate position between 
vespertilionis (/ and the males of other species of Ixodes, thus affording 
further evidence in support of the view expressed by Nuttall and 
Warburton (Ticks, Part II, p. 134, 1911) that the genus Eschatocephalus, 
created solely for vespertilionis, should be suppressed in favour of Ixodes. 
The hairs along the posterior ventral border in caledonicus and other 
characters suggest a resemblance to p^dus] the two deep-dorsal depres¬ 
sions, from which arise grooves running to the posterior border, recall 
the appearance seen in canisuga. , 
In this connection I would note the following as bearing on the 
structure of the foot in Ixodes males. On examining the males of 
species in which both sexes are known to occur upon the host, I find that 
