186 
Correspondence. 
r Auk 
L April 
Random Notes on some of the Parasites of Birds. 
To the Editors of ‘The Auk’ :— 
Dear Sirs:—Five or six years ago when collecting in New Mexico, 
I shot one afternoon some eighteen or twenty White-throated Swifts 
(.Aeronautes melanoleucus), which I carried home as usual in newspaper 
cones in my pockets. On my way back I di.-covered an enormous para- 
site crawling along the edge of the collar of my shooting-jacket. At 
first it struck me that it must be some large ‘pine-louse’ which had fallen 
on me while passing through the timber earlier in the day. But as I 
walked along the idea came into my mind that perhaps the Swifts had 
something to do with it, and I at once seated myself on the prairie and 
took out all my specimens. Some half a dozen of them had been carefully 
examined before anything turned up to confirm my suspicions, when, sure 
enough, I came to one which had crawling among its feathers an insect 
apparently the very counterpart of the one I had captured on my coat. 
Both of these were consigned to a small bottle in my collecting-case, but 
a thorough going over of all the rest of my birds did not reward me with 
another of those interesting parasites. A few days later I sent these speci- 
mens to the distinguished entomologist Mr. Charles O. Waterhouse, of 
the British Museum, and he found them worthy of a notice and a figure 
of the insect in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Zoological Society of London for 
1887 (pp. 163, 164) Mr. Waterhouse found this parasitic dipterous insect 
to belong to the family Hippoboscidae, and to be new to science. He 
called it Anapera fimbriata, and remarked : “It is closely allied to Anapera 
pallida, a European dipterous parasite found on Cypselus apus. It is, 
however, much larger, and is at once distinguished bv the almost total 
absence of wings—a character which might, by some, be considered of 
generic importance. Having only two examples, which appear to be 
females, I prefer for the present to place the species in the genus Ana- 
pera. ” 
My attention had never been especially drawn to this interesting subject 
before, nor have I since had much opportunity to look very closely into it. 
But it has often occurred to me, that if we were familiar with a great many 
of the parasites of our birds, they might in some instances prove to be of 
service in the classification of the birds themselves. Now in the case of 
those Swifts,—there we find two species, belonging, one each, to widely- 
separated countries. The extraordinarily large and unusual parasites 
found on them are also of the same genus, yet of very distinct species. 
It would be interesting now to know whether this parasite—Anapera 
Jimbriata—is found upon any of our other species bf Swifts, or whether 
they have different kinds infesting them. None of my ornithological 
friends seem to have given much attention to this subject, and, beyond the 
writings of Leach, Nitzsch, and Burmeister, I am not especially familiar 
with the literature of the subject. Sly peeps into Dame Nature’s secrets Vol. XI1 
1S94 J 
Correspondence. 
187 
are sometimes the most seductive of all the glimpses we catch of her, and 
a few days ago the notion entered rny head to do a little prying,—but only 
in the direction that has just been indicated. 
Every one of us who have collected birds have often noticed that if the 
specimens are set aside for a few hours, and the bodies become cold, 
numerous little parasites which have infested them during life now crawl 
out upon the ends of the feathers or bristles around the base of the man- 
dibles. Here they will often remain until they starve to death and fall 
off, or disappear in other ways. Hundreds of times I have looked at 
them with a high-power hand-lens with great interest, but never made 
any sketches of them, as I had at that time devised' no means to do so 
with accuracy. Later, I was again attracted to the subject, but owned no 
micro-photographing instrument of any kind. But a day or so ago I 
determined to overcome this most serious difficulty and improvise a 
micro-photographing apparatus, of some form or other, and in the 
venture I succeeded far beyond my most sanguine expectations. 
This is the way I did it, and my sketch of the affair as finally set up is 
given below and will help my readers to comprehend my remarks about 
it. These I will give in some little detail as I hope to have others inves- 
C: Camera-bojc; g, ground-glass ; k, the card-board front where the body of the micro- 
scope enters the camera; i, focussing screw of camera-beds ; f, fine adjustment screw of 
microscope, and c, the coarse adjustment; ob, objective; st, stage and substage; vr 
rubber-band holding the lens of lantern and substage condenser together; d, diaphragm 
in lantern lens ; s, standard for lantern; In, dark-room lantern of photographic outfit; sc1, 
sc*, screws to standard, by means of which the lantern can be lowered or raised. 188 
Correspondence. 
r Auk 
L April 
tigate and describe some of these parasites of our birds. Most naturalists 
nowadays own a camera and outfit, and also a microscope and its outfit. 
This is my case. In the first place then I took my largest camera and 
placed it on a long table as shown in the sketch. I removed its lens and 
lens-board, and fitted a cardboard front to take its place at K. Next I took 
my largest microscope, — a Beck’s Monocular National — and brought it 
into the horizontal position. I fitted the upper end of its body, while in 
this position, into the cardboard front of the camera (K). A substage 
condenser, and a | inch objective were next attached to the microscope, 
and the camera and the latter coupled together. Now most micro-pho- 
tographers omit using the eye-piece of the microscope, but with it I sub- 
sequently obtained the best results. It is inserted after the barrel or body 
of the microscope is run through the cardboard into the front part of the 
camera-box. 
For an illuminator I used the dark-lantern of my photographic outfit, — 
simply withdrawing the ruby-glass slide in front, and fitting in its place a 
thick piece of cardboard, into the centre of which I inserted the lens from 
a small camera to act as a ‘bull’s-eye condenser.’ This is coupled with 
the substage condenser on the microscope by means of a broad rubber 
band, shown at r. My lantern I held nicely in the proper position by 
suspending it between the ‘rings’ of a chemical standard, as shown in 
my sketch ; but any simple device will hold your lantern up in its proper 
place. It can even be ‘built up’ by putting books under it. Both the 
lantern and microscope rest upon a very thin board which travels with 
ease on the extension-bed of the camera-box. By this latter simple con- 
trivance, focussing your specimen on the ground-glass of the camera is 
easily managed. The screws at c, and i control the whole thing, and 
the rest can be with ease understood from my sketch of the plan adopted. 
Yesterday afternoon (Feb. 27, 1894) I shot a specimen of Junco kyerna- 
lis, and immediately after getting it, searched through its feathers for 
parasites but could find none after fifteen minutes’ hard-looking. In the 
throat-feathers, however, I found some minute, ellipsoidal egg-sacs,— 
four or five in one place, and two in another. They were about one-tenth 
of a millimetre long, and were attached .to the calami of the semi-plumula- 
ceous feathers so characteristic of most of the plumage of Junco. In 
most cases there was but one sac attached to a feather, at the side of its 
short calamus, but in two cases there were two sacs, placed exactly side by 
side. They were in an advanced stage of development and their structure 
could be easily studied with a high-power (one-fifth inch objective), 
without staining. 
In a few hours my Junco was cold and rigid, and two parasites were 
found upon his chin-feathers. They measured but a small fraction of a 
millimetre, and were of the same species, — apparently $ and ?. One 
was rather larger than the other and darker. I got them both on a 
minute feather, and between two microscopic ‘glass-slides,’ and on to the 
stage of the microscope. As soon as the light was turned on they were Voi. xri 
1894 J 
189 
Correspondence. 
thrown up on to the ground-glass of my camera as big as two small 
crabs! They could be focussed sharp, and studied with the greatest ease, 
— and of course there would be no difficulty in obtaining a first-rate photo- 
graph of them. It was most remarkable to see them get round through 
the barbules of the feathers, or at times suck the blood from an unopened 
‘pin-feather.’ Some of their antics were very curious. This species has 
a large triangular head; six legs, terminating in hooked claws for climb- 
ing among the feathers of the bird’s plumage. They also hold on with 
their mandibles, which are situated near the centre of the ventral aspect 
of the head. Antennae are lateral, and the whole insect is sparsely, very 
sparsely, covered with little spine-like hairs. I studied them for two 
hours with great interest and profit, and towards the last quite forgot the 
fact that the real insect was so small as to be scarcely observable by the 
naked eye. On the ground-glass of the camera they were between three 
and four inches long. 
I believe this to have been the only pair of the kind on the bird, but in 
a few hours another species appeared on the feathers of the throat of my 
Junco,—about a dozen or more of them. These were white, barely dis- 
cernible to the naked eye, and very active. They were entirely different 
in form from the first pair secured, and at the present writing I have not 
studied them very closely. 
This is all I have to say about this subject just at present, but in con- 
clusion let me add that I would be glad to have the titles of any works 
devoted especially to these forms of parasites as they have been described 
for birds in general, and for United States birds in particular. It would 
seem that a special memoir devoted to full descriptions of this class of 
insects, and illustrated by micro-photographs of the various species, 
would, apart from its value to the entomologist, prove of interest to the 
avian taxonomer. 
Very respectfully, 
R. W. Shufeldt. 
Takoma, D. C., Feb. 27, 1894.