The Wicked Flea. 69 



a thread to the body of the insect, passed the thread over 

 a puily, and hung a little pan at the end in which he put 

 sand until the insect could no longer pull it up, no matter 

 how much it was urged with clucks and " Geet up there, 

 Bill! ' He found that a hive-bee could lift 23 1-2 times 

 the weight of its body, while a bumble-bee, weighing 

 four times as much, could lift about fifteen times the 

 weight of its body. A man can lift by pulling in this 

 way about .86 of his weight, and a horse about .35. Here 

 is the paradox : The smaller the animal the greater its 

 relative strength. This does not look reasonable, but it is. 

 In the first place, it is true, and whatever is true has to be 

 reasonable some way or other. Since strength is a matter 

 of muscle contraction in insect or elephant, the strength 

 depends upon the cross-section of the muscle a plane 

 surface. But weight depends upon volume a cube. It 

 is not only how tall a man is and how wide he is, but how 

 thick through. Strength of muscle increases by squares 

 2, 4, 16, 256, and so on ; while weight increases by 

 cubes 2, 8, 512, 134,238,208, and so on. At that rate 

 it does not take weight very long to run away from 

 strength. 



Now, while the flea is very much stronger for his weight 

 than man is for his weight, it is because he is little that 

 he is strong. If he \vere our size, with his structure, he 

 would be a poor thing hardly able to stand up. It would 

 be just as comical to think of that big lummox hopping 

 around as it is to think of us leaping over the Washington 

 Monument. 



There have been on exhibition it has never been my 

 privilege to witness a performance educated fleas, and 

 from all I can gather the tricks they do are something 

 wonderful when you do not know ho\v they are done. 

 (I wonder what made me think of Mrs. Piper then.) It 



