Yesterday, in a discussion about ticks (OOGH! BLAH! YUK!) I read the
following:
 
>After watching a nature program on the television about the wild life in
>New York City I found out that the ticks that you get in the USA is not
>the type of tick we get here in the UK, your tick so I was told is a
>bird tick, where as here in the UK our tick is a sheep tick.
 
I freely confess that I am blissfully unaware of the nature of British
Tickdom.  However, here in the US we have many, many kinds of ticks,
not just "bird ticks."  Would that we did!  As someone who lives in
Massachusetts, I have to be vigilant against the 'Lyme Tick", a deer
tick that carries Lyme disease.  A very quick search of Massachusetts
and New Hampshire ticks brought up the following:
 
The Dog Tick (Dogs, Folks)
The Deer Tick (mice, Voles, Deer, Folks)
http://www.astdhpphe.org/infect/babesiosis.html
 
The Lone Star Tick (?, Folks, what is he doing *HERE*?)
http://www.mass.gov/dph/cdc/epii/lyme/lymehp.htm#otherdiseases
 
The Winter Tick (Moose, Deer, Horses)
The Brown Dog Tick (Dogs, Folks)
The Black Legged Tick (Mice, Rodents, Birds, Deer)
VARIOUS: Ixodes cookei (Dogs, Cats, Woodchucks, Porcupine, Folks)
         Ixodes banksi  (Beavers, Muskrats)
         Ixodes Mursi  (Mice, Cats, People)
         Ixodes Marxi  (Squirrels)
http://www.gigglemoose.com/artcl-ticks.htm
 
Obviously, these are not all "bird ticks".  Further, it would surprise
me greatly if my English ancestors on the Mayflower managed to cross the
Atlantic and land *without* a representative sample of ticks and body
lice.  (That was the primary purpose of the Mayflower Compact.  It had
little to do with government by the consent of the governed.  It was
rolled up tightly and used to smash VERMIN!)  The waves of Englishmen
who came after them probably brought us more than just the Plantain Lily
(the Indians called it Englishman's Foot, because it showed they'd been
there), the honey bee (the black, or German bee), and oh, you devils...
the STARLING!!!  (How could you?  Well, I guess we've had our revenge.
There's always Brittany Spears.)
 
Alexandra in MA
(Itching. )
[Posted in FML issue 4839]