Wood-Ticks
Category:
Viii Little Foes Of The Trailer
I had been told of the ticks that infest the forests of the South, had
heard blood-curdling stories of how they sometimes bury themselves,
entire, in the flesh of animals and men and have to be cut out, and my
horror of them was great. In reality I found them unpleasant enough but,
as far as we were concerned, comparatively harmless.
The wood-tick is a small, rather disgusting-looking creature which, in
appearance and size, resembles the common bedbug. It fastens itself upon
you without your knowledge and you do not feel it even when it begins
to suck your blood, but something generally impels you to pass your
hand over the back of your neck, or cheek, where the thing is clinging,
and, feeling the lump, you pull it off and no great harm done. The tick
is supposed always to bury its head in the flesh, and it is said that if
the head is left in when the bug is pulled off an ugly sore will be the
result. We had no experience of that kind, however, nor, in our hurry to
get rid of it, did we stop to remove the bug scientifically by dropping
oil on it, as Kephart advises, but just naturally and simply, also
vigorously, we grasped it between thumb and forefinger and hastily
plucked it off. The effect of the bite was no worse on any of our party
than that of the Jersey mosquito.
Often your friends will see a tick on you and tell you of it even while
they have several, all unknown to themselves, decorating their own
countenance. The name by which science knows this unlovely bug is
_Ixodes leech_.
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