THE CATTLE TICK.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1268, 25 October 1911, Page 8

THE CATTLE TICK.

■A LOCAL APPEARANCE. "Writing, in the latest number of the "Journal of the Department of Agriculture," Mr. •H. A# Keid, F.K.CW .S., D.T.H., gives the. following interesting information concerning the cattle tick:— In January last Mr. J. W. Otway, . Inspector of Stock. North Auckland district. forwarded to tho laboratory for identification some specimens ol ticks obtained from cattle in the district. They were found, on examination, to be tho so-called "castor-bean." tick (Ixodes ricinus), the presence of which in New Zealand. so far as I am aware, has not been previously recorded. The interest of the discovery rests in the fact that this particular 'variety o£ tick has bssn shown I/O be> implicated in tho production of the condition known in America as "Texas fever/' and in Great Britain under the term "red-trater." • ♦ • Cases presenting notable symptoms of red-water arc not uncommon among cattle in various parts of New Zealand, but hitherto failure has always attended efforts to determine the presence of ticks, in spite of diligent search undertaken for t\\U purpose; in fact, all such cases up to the present have been proved to be dun J .o dietetic causes, and have recovered when, this error has been corrected and vsuitoble treatment adopted. In vieir, of the undoubted nresenc* of• cattle-ticks in cittain part? of the country, the possibility of the parasite ae'ing as the infective agent of red-water should not bo los*' sight of. As in the caso of malarial fever in* man. wliich is conveyed by means «;f a mosquito, so in < this instance it is that the tick a,t;some r-eri-vl of its existence shall have imbibed blood from an affected subject before ic is capable of transmitting red-water to other cattle. I would suggest, therefore, that future cattlo showing symritoms of tr.irdisease, or dead a* a result of it. would b? carefullv examined for the presence of ticks. In t.h* event of any J)eins found it is requested that srjceinie f n> bo forwarded to tho Veterinary Laboratory, "Wallaceville, for examination.