t 
' 1 May, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 389: 
NOTES ON THE QUEENSLAND CATTLE TICK, AND ITS RELATION- 
SHIP TO THE TEXAS FEVER TICK AND THE BLUE TICK OF 
CAPE COLONY (SOUTH AFRICA). 
By CLAUDE FULLER, F.E.S., : 
Assistant Government Entomologist to the Department of Agriculture, Cape Colony. 
The second lot of ticks which you and Mr. Pound have been so good as: 
to send me arrived, vid London, safely last week. Altogether they are a very 
interesting and useful lot. The sheep “ticks” Iam very glad to get hold of, 
not having any in my collection; the same applies to the fowl ticks, specimens 
of which I have long desired in order to compare them carefully with our: 
local pest. The exact scjentific name of this tick is as yet unsettled, but I 
think it will yet prove to be Argas reflecus, and that Argas miniatus, A. persicus, 
and A. americanus are only synonyms, being all one and the same thing. So 
far, I have been unable to find any difference between specimens from 
America, Australia, India, and Cape Colony. 
The two large ticks sent are members of the genus Amblyomma, but I have 
not been able to make out the species as yet for want of time. You will see 
that they are not unlike our local Amblyomma, of which I am sending some: 
specimens, but these will not reach you for some time after this letter. 
Together with this, I am sending you some notes on the various cattle 
ticks, from which you will see that I have found the North American, the: 
Australian, and that from Cape Colony distinet from one another. The 
Queensland form appears to be a new species, for which I have proposed the 
name australis ; it is curious that it is the same as the one Mr. Pound sent me 
as coming from South America. 
These notes I have written in a form suitable for reproduction in your 
Agricultural Journal, in the pages of which I should like to see them repro- 
duced. Drawings suitable for making zine blocks from are also sent, which if 
added as illustrations, will render the notes much more yaluable. 
As early as 1898 the Queensland cattle tick was identified as Ixodes bovis, 
Riley, by the late A. S. Olliff, and was until recently regarded as specifically 
identical with that species by many later students. I believe that the first 
doubt as to the correctness of this assumption was thrown out by Dr. D. E. 
Salmon, Chief of the U.S.A. Bureau of Animal Industry, ina letter to Mr, P. R. 
Gordon, Chief Inspector of Stock (Queensland). In this communication (dated 
9th December, 1897) Dr. Salmon says: “ You will possibly recall that we con- 
sidered the Australian form distinct from our American form. Professor 
Neumann—who had for his monograph a very large number of specimens,. 
including our entire collection, and has studied the Australian ticks which Dr. 
Hunt gaye us some time ago—does not, however, agree with us on this point, | 
but considers that they are identical.” 
As it has since become important to settle the identity of the supposed 
_redwater tick in Cape Colony, also said to be J. bovis, I have made a careful 
study of all three forms, and have come to the conclusion that they are three 
distinct species. 
The specimens of Rhipicephalus annulatus, Say. (Izodes (Boophilus) bovis), 
were kindly furnished, through Mr. C. P. Lounsbury, by Dr. L. O. Howard, 
Entomologist, U.S.A., Dr. M. Francis, of Texas, and Professor H. A. Morgan, 
of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Australian form and a few from South 
America, which prove to be identical with it, were very kindly sent to me by 
my friends, Messrs. P. R. Gordon, Chief Inspector of Stock, and C. J. Pound, 
Director of the Stock Institute, Queensland. 
The local Blue Tick, of which I have specimens from eastern and western 
parts of the colony, I regard as Rhipicephalus decoloratus, an insufficiently 
described species of Koch’s. Koch’s description of this species is so meagre 
"that it is impossible to gather move from it than that he had a single specimen 
