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]