C. Warburton 
291 
but still slender spines on either side of the anus. Ambulacrum with peduncle 
relatively short and terminal sucker large (Railliet). Two hairs longer than 
the rostrum on the epistome; a single pair of short anal bristles (Neumann). 
1. Var. cati. 
$ 245-280/* x 165-175/*. 
<? 145-150/* x 120-125/*. 
The cat scabies mite was seen by Gohier in 1813 but it was Hering (1838) 
who first attempted to describe it. He apparently found the male, which he 
considered the smallest Arachnid known. Fiirstenberg fused cati and cuniculi, 
but Gerlach thought them distinct, and Megnin and Railliet take the same 
view, though the differences are practically only physiological. 
The scabies begins on the head and ears of the cat, but later invades the 
whole body. Though easily cured in its early stages it causes death, if un¬ 
treated, in 4-6 months. A great many cases prove that it is easily com¬ 
municable to man, but soon dies out spontaneously. Gerlach experimented 
on pupils at Berlin and on himself, but the disease always died out in from 
10 to 20 days. All the clinical cases of cat scabies on man have been traced 
to contact with pet cats in a mangy condition. 
Horses have acquired it from mangy cats reposing on their backs, and the 
same is said of the ox, though this is questioned. Gerlach attempted, un¬ 
successfully, to transmit it to the pig. Delafond and Bourguignon gave it to 
the dog—puppies dying of the disease. Megnin places here the sarcopt found 
by Colin on the Coati, but Railliet thinks it was N. alepis. 
2. Var. cuniculi (S. cuniculi Gerlach, 1857). This must be the “variete 
gliricole” of Megnin (1893, p. 145). 
$ 215-235/* x 165-175/*. 
<J 142-155/* x 116-125/*. 
Beyond the trifling difference of measurements there seems to be no 
visible distinction between cati and cuniculi , but their behaviour is not the 
same. It is severe on the rabbit, beginning at the muzzle and then invading 
the whole body, frequently fatal, because the animal is unable to feed. 
According to Megnin (p. 145) it also affects the rat. Railliet found it only very 
slightly contagious. He could not transmit it to the rabbit by depositing 
crusts from a mangy rabbit on the shaved skin of a healthy subject, nor by 
cohabitation for 11 days. He did not succeed in communicating it to the 
dog, the cat or the rat. 
N. alepis Railliet and Lucet, 1893. 
Striations regular and concentric; no dorsal scales; four very slender 
spines on either side of the notothorax, and six on either side of the anus, 
which is more posterior than in N. minor (Text-fig. 8). 
? 300-450/* x 230-400/*. 
170-180/* x 130-140/*. 
