262 KATHARINE FOOT. 



scribed in a recent note on the " Spermatogenesis of P. vesti- 

 inenti" (Foot, '19). 



It is impossible to breed lice without daily feeding them on 

 human blood, and in the above mentioned note are stated the dif- 

 ficulties I encountered in finding a host. I finally secured the 

 services of an old French sailor who came to my laboratory 

 every day to allow them to bite his arm for one hour. 



An amusing and perhaps significant behavior O'f the lice dur- 

 ing the feeding hour was emphasized in my report to the research 

 department of the Red Cross because it suggested a type of ex- 

 periments that might be of some scientific value and needed the 

 cooperation of a medical adviser. The old sailor (my food sup- 

 ply) was addicted to some drug whether alcohol, absinthe, mor- 

 phine or what not it was impossible to determine, but the effect 

 was unmistakable both on the sailor and the lice. The sailor slept 

 the entire hour and the lice fought one another with apparent 

 vicious intent. They showed no indication oi seeking one an- 

 other, but if two met while wandering restlessly about each would 

 seize the other by the head and thorax, and claw with vicious 

 activity, at the same time clinging with such tenacity that it was 

 often impossible to separate them without injury to one or both. 

 The combatants were either two males, two females, a male and 

 a female or an adult and a nymph. 



I learned later that this belligerent aspect of lice was appre- 

 ciated by some of our soldiers and that a " cootie fight " in the 

 trenches was one of the few recreations possible and afforded 

 not a little amusement. Two sailors contributed each a cootie 

 and they were placed on a small hand mirror, the ensuing combat 

 been watched with keen interest and I suspect that the sense of 

 proprietorship extended to the point of each owner betting on 

 his own cootie. The boys thought the fighting spirit of the lice 

 due to the fact that the two had been raised on different hosts, 

 but I have tested this suggestion with negative results and I am 

 inclined to think it merely an expression of some discomfort, due 

 in the one case to the change from skin to glass and in the case 

 of the old sailor it seemed to be a direct response to some ab- 

 normal condition of the blood. In this case it seriously inter- 

 ferred with my breeding experiments, for the lice not only injured 



