390 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 May, 1899. 
from the Cape of Good Hope, which was, judging from the colour, an unim- 
pregnated and undersized female. He figures the shield with two furrows - 
dividing it into three regions, the median yellow, the laterals red; and it is 
this feature, also noticed by Neumann, who had the opportunity of studying 
the original type, which has chiefly guided me in determining the species as 
decoloratus, there being no other species recorded from South Africa, or known 
to me, which possesses the same coloration of the dorsal shield. 
The Australian species, also sent as from South America, is quite distinct 
from either the North American or the South African, and is therefore looked 
upon as anew species, for which the name australis, by which it is subsequently 
referred to, is proposed.* 
The genus Rhipicephalus, to which the above species belong, has been 
reviewed by Professor Neumann, in an excellent treatise entitled a “ Revision 
de la Famille des Ixodes”+—a work that has been of the greatest assistance in 
making these comparisons, so that it is with much regret that I find I am 
at variance on one or two points with this most learned savant. 
The genus, as may be gathered from the revision just quoted, contains 
some sixteen recognisable species which may be readily divided into two well- 
defined groups by referring to the number of furrows in the dorsal shield of 
the adult female; there being two in some species and four in others. The 
ticks under discussion belong to the former group, which appears to contain 
six species—viz., annulatus and Neumann’s variety, caudatus (which I am 
prepared to regard as a distinct species), evertst, pulchellus, decoloratus, and 
the Australian-South American form, australis. Of these, only annulatus, 
decoloratus, and australis have been studied directly, the characters of the rest 
being those given by Neumann, which are excellent descriptions, my North — 
American specimens fully according with that of annulatus, except as regards 
the smaller process of the mandibles. This minute but important feature, 
Neumann describes as being in the form of a simple cone; with this I do not 
agree, as, in the specimens I have examined, it is distinctly bi-cuspid, the 
additional tooth being often difficult to detect, as it is implanted at right 
angles to the more prominent one. The species is also credited with a very 
large geographical distribution, which includes parts of America and the West 
Indies, Australia, Asia, Sumatra, and Africa. I, however, have failed to find it 
amongst such ticks as I have from South America, Australia, and Cape 
Colony. 
The chief characters which I have found of use in distinguishing the 
various species studied are—(1) the furrows of the dorsal shield of the female ; 
(2) the number of rows of teeth to the labium or hypostome; (8) the form of 
the mandibles, particularly the lesser process (the internal apophysis of Neu- 
mann); (4) the extent of the dorsal shield of the male; and (5) the presenee 
or absence of a “tail” to the male. 
‘The following tables indicate the bearing of these features upon the 
species :— 
A. Furrows of the dorsal shield of the female extending to the 
| posterior lateral margins:—#. annulatus, caudatus, evertsi, 
1. decoloratus, and australis. 
kee Furrows becoming obsolete in the middle of the shield at 
about half its length :—R. pulchellus. 
(This feature removes pulchellus from all the others.) 
Pa Se ee ae ee 
* Mr. H. Tryon, Entomologist to the Queensland Department of Agriculture, had already, 
in an official report on the subject of the identity of this tick on 1st February, 1899, pronounced 
on the distinctness of the Queensland Cattle Tick from Ixodes bovis. "This officer, in the report 
alluded to, stated as follows :—“‘ These ticks are undoubtedly examples of Ixodes bovis, or rather 
of the Queensland variety of it, regarding which it may be stated that this differs slightly, as 
would appear from the typical form.”—Ed. Q.4.J. 
age Memoires de la Société Zoologique de France, vol. ix., page 1, 1896, and vol. x., page 324, ' 
Uy 
