Wood-Ticks
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.