94. Sheep Tick.
95. Bat Tick.
In the wingless Sheep tick (Melophagus ovinus, Fig. 94, with the pupa-case on the left), the body is wingless and very hairy, and the proboscis is very long. The young are developed within the body of the parent, until they attain the pupa state, when she deposits the pupa case, which is nearly half as large as her abdomen. Other genera are parasitic on bats; among them are the singular spider-like Bat ticks (Nycteribia, Fig. 95), which have small bodies and enormous legs, and are either blind, or provided with four simple eyes. They are of small size, being only a line or two in length. Such degraded forms of Diptera have a remarkable resemblance to the spiders, mites, ticks, etc. The reader should compare the Nycteribia with the young six-footed moose tick figured farther on. Another spider-like fly is the Chionea valga (Fig. 96; and 97, larva of the European species), which is a degraded Tipula, The latter genus standing near the head of the Diptera. The Chionea, according to Harris, lives in its early, stages in the ground like many other gnats, and is found early in the spring, sometimes crawling over the snow. We have also figured and mentioned previously (page [41]) the Bee louse, Braula, another wingless spider-like fly.
96. Spider fly.
97. Larva of Spider fly.
The Flea is also a wingless fly, and is probably, as has been suggested by an eminent entomologist, as Baron Osten Sacken informs us, a degraded genus of the family to which Mycetobia belongs. Its transformations are very unlike those of the fly ticks, and agree closely with the early stages of Mycetophila, one of the Tipulid family. In its adult condition the flea combines the characters of the Diptera, with certain features of the grasshoppers and cockroaches, and the bugs. The body of the flea (Fig. 98, greatly magnified; a, antennæ; b, maxillæ, and their palpi, c; d, mandibles; the latter, with the labium, which is not shown in the figure, forming the acute beak) is much compressed, and there are minute wing-pads, instead of wings, present in some species.
