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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
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