LICE AFFECTING DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
209 
eggs are glued to the hairs or feathers of the host animal and 
open with a circular cap or lid at the free end. The larvm 
are less flattened, shorter in proportion, and without the har¬ 
dened parts common to the adults covering a part of the sur¬ 
face. The length of life and rapidity of multiplication has 
not been determined for any species so far as we know, and 
the habits of the insects make any such determination a mat¬ 
ter of great difficulty. 
The effect of these upon the host animal may be less im¬ 
portant than that of the suctorial lice, but judging from cases, 
where serious results follow the efforts of the animals to rid 
themselves, and from the known irritation due to the crawl¬ 
ing of anything among hairs and feathers, it cannot be doubt¬ 
ed that they cause much inconvenience to the creatures 
which become their involuntary supporters. 
Biting Lice of Horses, Mules, Asses, Etc. 
Trichodectes equi, of Authors. 
The original reference by Linnaeus to the lice of horses 
and asses under the name of Pediculns equi most certainly 
refers to the common Trichodectes infesting these animals, but 
Piaget has reached the conclusion that this reference is to 
the form subsequently described by Giebel as Trichodectes 
pilosus , and that the form described by Denny as equi , and 
which has since almost universally been treated as the Lin- 
nasan species, was in reality a different insect from that de¬ 
scribed by Linnaeus under the same name. He therefore 
describes this form under the name of parumpliosus . It is 
certainly somewhat confusing to be obliged to drop the 
familiar designation for so common a species, and were it not 
that the conclusion has been reached by one who is probably 
the highest living authority regarding these insects we should 
hesitate to introduce the change. The figures given by 
Piaget, however, leave no doubt that there is a decided dif¬ 
ference between pilosus and parumpilosus , and it is equally 
certain that our common species belongs to the latter form ; 
so, if there is no question as to Linnaeus having the form 
pilosus in hand, we certainly have no right on technical 
