tem,
though there is one to be discovered; and at last disgusted with the
stiff and arbitrary systems of our books,--a disgust we confess most
wholesome, if it only leads him into a closer communion with nature. The
sooner one leaves those maternal apron-strings,--books,--and learns to
identify himself with nature, and thus goes out of himself to affiliate
with the spirit of the scene or object before him,--or, in other words,
cultivates habits of the closest observation and most patient
reflection,--be he painter or poet, philosopher or insect-hunter of low
degree, he will gain an intellectual strength and power of interpreting
nature, that is the gift of true genius.

[Illustration: The Ant Lion and adult.]

CHAPTER XI.

MITES AND TICKS.

But few naturalists have busied themselves with the study of mites. The
honored names of Hermann, Von Heyden, Duges, Dujardin and Pagenstecher,
Nicolet, Koch and Robin, and the lamented Claparede of Geneva, lead the
small number who have published papers in scientific journals. After
these, and except an occasional note by an amateur microscopist who
occasionally pauses from his "diatomaniacal" studies, and looks upon a
mite simply as a "microscopic object," to be classed in his micrographic
Vade Mecum with mounted specimens of sheep's wool, and the hairs of
other quadrupeds, a distorted proboscis of a fly, and podura scales, we
read but little of mites and their habits. But few readers of our
natural history text-books learn from their pages any definite facts
regarding the affinities of these humble creatures, their organization
and the singular metamorphosis a few have been known to pass through. We
shall only attempt in the present article to indicate a few of the
typical forms of mites, and sketch, with too slight a knowledge to speak
with much authority, an imperfect picture of their appearance and modes
of living.

Mites are lowly organized Arachnids. This order of insects is divided
into the Spiders, the Scorpions, the Harvestmen and the Mites (Acarina).
They have a rounded oval body, without the usual division between the
head-thorax and abdomen observable in spiders, the head-thorax and
abdomen being merged in a single mass. There are four pairs of legs, and
the mouth parts consist, as seen in the adjoining figure of a young tick
(Fig. 142, young Ixodes albipictus), of a pair of maxillae (_c_), which
in the adult terminates in a two or three-jointed palpus, or