1 May, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 855 
eges with her Water and grain, such as barley or maize, must be placed 
ready for her, and after she has had a good feed she will usually go on again of 
her own accord. From 10 to 20 minutesis about the time she should be absent 
from the eggs. A dust bath must be provided; also plenty of grit. The 
chicks should be looked for on the twenty-first day. 
[On this subject of poultry management, I would recommend the poultry 
keepers to read the excellent paper from the pen of Mrs. Lance-Rawson, which 
was read by Mr. Whiteley at the Agricultural Conference held at Rockhampton 
on 11th, 12th, and 13th May last year. It will be found in Vol. III. of this 
Journal, page 110. Ed., Q.4.J.] 
THE POULTRY BUG OR TICK. 
By MRS. LANCE RAWSON. 
Tur other colonies are inclined to ridicule Victoria for making an effort to 
keep the poultry tick outside her boundaries, but [am convinced thatit will not 
be very long before both Queensland and New South Wales will be under the 
necessity of using drastic measures to restrict or curtail the ravages of this 
same parasite. A few correspondents tell me that they have known and had 
experience of this tick for years. If that is the case, then, like most of our 
pests in this country, it has been lying semi-dormant, awaiting the conditions 
which only now matured for its successful development, for it is certainly most 
remarkable the way it has sprung to life and activity in at least three of the 
colonies at almost the same time. During my lifetime I have observed that 
several of our worst diseases and plagues, after being slightly known, or to only 
a few of the most observant farmers, for several years, have quite suddenly 
developed into full-grown plagues, with any amount of capacity for doing 
harm. The rust in wheat down South, gumming in sugar-cane up North, the 
disease in grape vines, potato disease, the fruit fly, orange moth, all have been 
noticed by a few for a long time before the natural conditions had actually 
“matured properly to give them the exact impetus that conyerted them into the 
dangerous plagues they at once became. do not suppose that any one of 
them could have been prevented, but certainly, by taking them at the very 
beginning, their ravages might have been minimised. It is bad policy at any 
time to disregard the small signs and symptoms of trouble among the crops. 
A new sort of fly (never noticed before), a peculiar caterpillar, an odd butterfly, 
should always be regarded as danger signals to the man who lives on and by 
the land. With this poultry tick, had it been looked into and means taken for 
its suppression when first noticed, many of our poultry keepers would not now 
be lamenting the loss of so many of their birds. 
The first L ever heard of the tick, as a tick, was about two years ago, when 
a lady living in the Springsure district, Central Queensland, wrote me about 
her turkeys, that were, she said, dying from the effects of a sort of tick that — 
lived in the cracks and holes of fowlhouses and roosts, and came out in 
hundreds at night to prey upon the defenceless birds. I could only suggest 
fumigating or scalding, for the pest was one I could not understand, and had 
no experience of to guide me; but to-day there is “no possible doubt what- 
ever” that the poultry tick is going to be a pest all the colonies will have to 
reckon with very shortly, and unless the different Governments insist upon all 
poultry-keepers within their colonies taking prompt and drastic means for 
exterminating them before they get too great a hold, the poultry industry, 
which is only just beginning to take its place among other and older industries, 
will surely suffer. This parasite is called a tick, probably because so many 
varieties of tick do exist, and it is fashionable just now to call everything a 
tick, but I very much doubt if it is a tick. Its habits are more like those of a 
= bug or louse; the tick invariably attaches itself to the animal it preys on, and 
~Temains thus attached till it reaches maturity, and falls off either to lay: its 
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