Ha! see him spring out of his chair as though
electrified. Watch how, regardless of the laws of buttons, he
frantically tears his trowsers from his limbs; he has him! no he
hasn't! - yes he has! - no - no, positively he cannot get him
off. It is a tick no bigger than a grain of sand, but his bite
is like a red-hot needle boring into the skin. If all the royal
family had been present, he could not have refrained from tearing
off his trowsers.
The naturalist has been out the whole morning collecting, and a
pretty collection he has got - a perfect fortune upon his legs
alone. There are about a hundred ticks who have not yet
commenced to feed upon him; there are also several fine specimens
of the large flat buffalo tick; three or four leeches are
enjoying themselves on the juices of the naturalist; these he had
not felt, although they had bitten him half an hour before; a
fine black ant has also escaped during the recent confusion,
fortunately without using his sting.
Oil is the only means of loosening the hold of a tick; this
suffocates him and he dies; but he leaves an amount of
inflammation in the wound which is perfectly surprising in so
minute an insect. The bite of the smallest species is far more
severe than that of the large buffalo or the deer tick, both of
which are varieties.
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