258 
PENETRATION OF IXODES BENEATH THE SKIN. 
By GEORGE H. F. NUTTALL, F.R.S. 
{From the Quich Laboratory, University of Cambridge.) 
In Ticks (Part ii. p. 314) various cases are cited by me in wbich 
Ixodes in the larval, nymphal and adult stages have been found lodged 
beneath the skin of the host: Dubreuilh (1838), Van Beneden (1883) 
and Blanchard (1891) record cases in man where ticks were found 
either in a pustule or in cysts beneath the skin. In Blanchard’s case 
a living /. ricinus (?), 8 mm. in length, was excised from the patient, 
in whom it caused a subcutaneous tumour about the size of a nut 
which had appeared some weeks before. Megnin (1867 and 1892) 
found (?) ricinus nymphs beneath the scabs covering pustules on the 
legs of a horse at Versailles. Kossel, Schiitz, Weber and Miessner 
(1903) state that ricinus nymphs and larvae occasionally bore themselves 
beneath the skin of cattle. 
Trilebert (1863) observed a cyst containing (?) ricinus at the end of 
a dog’s ear, and Aurivillius (1886) records the presence of ricinus beneath 
the skin of a fox. 
In March of this year, Mr Charles L. Walton, of the Zoology Depart¬ 
ment, University College of Wales, sent us some specimens (N. 2733- 
2735) obtained from beneath the skin of two foxes by Mr Hutchings, 
the local taxidermist at Aberystwyth. Some four or five ticks occupied 
as many “ cysts ” beneath the ear and about the groin of the animals. 
On examining two of the ticks (the remaining cysts were preserved 
unopened) we found them to be I. ricinus (?) and I. hexagonus (nymph). 
This appears to be the first case of the kind recorded in Great Britain. 
The cysts were preserved in alcohol and tightly enclosed the ticks, 
which were removed with difficulty from the tough connective tissue 
in which they were embedded. 
