The Wicked Flea. 55 



living thing. All other creatures of the six-legged kind 

 are put into nomenclative pens according to their wings. 

 If they have hard-shell backs like the potato-bug, they are 

 Coleoptera, or beetles ; if they have half- wings like a 

 squash-bug, they are Hemiptera, or true bugs; if they 

 have one pair of thin gauzy wings, like flies, mosquitoes, 

 and such, they are Diptera ; if they have two pair of these 

 thin wings like bees, wasps, ants, saw-flies, and dragon- 

 flies, they are Hymenoptera ; if they have straight wings 

 like crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts, they are Orthop- 

 tera ; if their wings are covered with a mealy powder like 

 butterflies and clothes-moths, they are Lepidoptera ; but 

 what are you to do with an insect that has no wings at 

 all? 



The best guess is that at one time they did have two 

 wings like the flies. This was a good while ago. I have 

 not the figures by me at the moment, but a little matter 



Fig. 12. Pulex irrifans, European flea; a, larva; fi, pupa; c, imago. 



of some five or six millions of years ought not to bother 

 us. \Ye will say that it was quite a while ago that they 

 held a convention and decided to secede from the regular, 

 orthodox, two-winged set and strike out on a new line 

 for themselves. They didn't see the sense of justification 

 by works when there were so many red-blooded animals 

 about into whose fur one might snuggle down and keep 

 warm. Grace abounded in the shape of hot, nourishing 



