302 THE INDIAN JOURNAL OF VETERINARY SCIENCE AND ANIMAL HUSBANDRY [ I, IV

The writer desires to express his grateful thanks to the following officers for
the encouragement given by them in the prosecution of the investigation :—

    E. S. Farbrother, M.R.C.V.S.,I.V.S., Superintendent, Civil Veterinary
        Department, Bombay Presidency.

    Dr. Mann, Ph.D., Director, Agricultural Department, Bombay Presidency.

    Collector of North Kanara District.

    Veterinary Inspector V. N. Kulkarni.

    Valuable suggestions have been received from K.S.J.D. Buxy, Deputy
        Superintendent, Civil Veterinary Department, Bombay Presidency, and
        Mr. S. K. Sen, M. Sc., to whom sincere thanks are due.

                                              HISTORICAL.

Compared with what is known in other countries, very little appears to be on
record upon ticks occurring in India. This being due, it would appear, to the
paucity of material available for examination by experts. Systematic arachnology
though it dates from 1758, when Linnaeus had described two species, would
appear to have been earnestly begun in 1897 by Supino who described about 20
species, many of which were from Burma. Lately when more materials were
available, Neumann revised Supino's species and also described some new forms.
In 1901 Stiles and Hassall recorded B. Australis, the vector of Piroplasma bovis
for the first time in India. Christopher's memoir, " Anatomy and Histology of
ticks " appeared in 1906 and Warburton published in 1907 a short account of " The
Ticks infesting domesticated animals in India ". Since 1909 Nuttall, Warburton,
Robinson and Cooper have considerably enriched our knowledge of the more
common species of ticks found in India. Sharif [ 1928 ] of the Zoological Survey
of India, published, what would appear a comprehensive account of the forms
occurring in India and in this connection he described nine genera, forty-five
species, four sub-species and six varieties of which five species, two sub-species and
one variety are new and one species and two sub-species recorded for the first time
in India.

A good deal of original information upon tick-borne diseases in India has been
embodied in some of the papers published during recent years from the Imperial
Institute of Veterinary Research. [ Cooper, 1926, 1, 2 ; Edwards, 1927. ]

                  TOPOGRAPHICAL AND CLIMATIC FEATURES OF KANARA.

North Kanara, the southern most district of the Bombay Presidency, lies
between 13° 55' and 15° 31' North latitude and 74° 9' and 75° 10' East longitude.