C. L. Walton 
217 
sent me a number of “cysts” taken from beneath the ear, and about 
the groin of two foxes killed in the south of the Area. On opening one 
a tick was found within, and the whole were forwarded to Prof. G. H. F. 
Nuttall, F.R.S., who identified them as I. ricinus (?) and I. hexagonus 
nymph. A note by Prof. Nuttall describing these specimens appeared 
in Parasitology, vii. p. 258. He says “ This appears to be the first case 
of the kind recorded in Gt. Britain,” and concludes “The penetration 
of Ixodes beneath the skin is not due to mechanical activity on the part 
of the tick. It is due to the increasing oedema and inflammatory 
swelling of the host’s skin whose surface rises above the subjacent tissues 
in which the tick’s hypostome is anchored—while the tick is sucking 
the host’s blood, the host’s skin revenges itself by swallowing the tick. 
After the tick has penetrated beneath the skin, the wound it produced 
may heal and be obliterated. The long hypostome of Ixodes appears 
to be an essential factor in the process, for we have no records of Ixodidae 
with short hypostomes penetrating beneath the skin. 
However long the ticks may live in this situation, the firm cyst-like 
mass of tissue which forms above them necessarily renders their sub¬ 
sequent escape impossible and they must die in situ.” Further specimens 
from foxes have been obtained. I. hexagonus, this species has been 
obtained (in addition to the above-mentioned record) from polecat, 
ferret, badger, and otter. It is common upon the two former. The 
very rare male was taken from the badger while from the otter one 
female and three nymphs were obtained (June 1916). 
I. canisuga, one female from a badger. 
I. unicavatus, several specimens from a shag. 
D. reticulatus has been taken crawling upon a dog that wandered 
about the rough hill known as Pen Dinas, close to Aberystwyth, and 
its true local host is as yet unknown. Cattle grazing about the hill 
have been examined without result and the specimens were obtained 
by one of my students, Mr Ivenrick Evans, who sent a white terrier 
through the bushes and subsequently searched its coat. By this means 
specimens were taken in November 1913, and January, February, and 
March 1914. I also obtained one crawling upon clothing in July 1915, 
near Llanfihangel y creuddyn. 
I obtained several specimens of this tick, under very similar con¬ 
ditions, near Kingsbridge, Devon, during the hot summer of 1911, but 
I have never succeeded in finding it upon farm stock. 
I am indebted to Prof. Nuttall and Mr C. Warburton for the identi¬ 
fication of a number of specimens. 
