HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



97 



FLEAS, FLEAS! 



" Dear miss, don't you like fleas ! Well, I think they are the prettiest little merry things in the world, 

 dull flea in all my life."— Kirby and Spence. 



1 never saw a 



IVELY! yes, 

 they are lively 

 creatures, are 

 those fleas, and 

 if the month of 

 March does not 

 bring us spring, 

 it brings us 

 " springers " in 

 was not a bad 

 . Domingo, who, 

 when the arch-tormentor of 

 men and saints appeared to 

 him in the form of a flea, and 

 skipped upon his book, to fix 

 him there as a mark where 

 he left off, and continue to 

 use him so throughout the 

 volume. Would that all fleas 

 could be induced to follow 

 such an example, and meet 

 with such a reward. 

 Are fleas degenerated flies, 

 who have lost their wings and taken to their legs ? 

 It is the opinion of entomologists, at least some 

 of them, that fleas are very nearly related to the 

 Diptera; but as for degeneration, or progression, 

 upwards or downwards, in this developmental age, 

 we are at times almost staggered, not only at fleas, 

 but something higher in the scale of creation than 

 these, that were once, if dreams become true, even 

 lower than fleas in the circle of life. Men, flies, 

 fleas, Bathybius, through myriads of ages strug- 

 gling upwards. By the same token may they not 

 slide back, man, monkey, mouse, mollusc, to the 

 monad again ? 



Whence came the fleas ? Or, using the language 

 of the evolutionists, through what chain of being 

 can we trace the flea to its origin, until we find its 

 primogenitors stopping a bunghole ? Some trace 

 the descent of fleas from a remote and very un- | 

 No. 77. 



savoury origin, but we will rest content with a more 

 romantic legend. 



Amongst the Kurds a tradition is preserved that 

 when Noah's ark sprang a leak by striking against 

 a rock in the vicinity of Mount Sindshar, and Noah 

 despaired altogether of safety, the serpent promised 

 to help him out of his mishap if he would engage 

 to feed him upon human flesh after the deluge had 

 subsided. Noah pledged himself to do so, and the 

 serpent coiling himself up, drove his body into the 

 fracture, and stopped the leak. When the pluvious 

 element was appeased, and all were making their 

 way out of the ark, the serpent insisted upon the 

 fulfilment of the pledge he had received ; but Noah, 

 by Gabriel's advice, committed the pledge to the 

 flames, and scattering its ashes in the air, there 

 arose out of them fleas, flies, lice, bugs, and all such 

 sort of vermin as prey upon human blood, and after 

 this fashion was Noah's pledge redeemed. 



So much for the tradition of the Kurds ; but lest 

 it should be supposed that this is the only fragment 

 we possess of the prehistoric times of fleas, we will 

 furnish another from the Sandwich Islands, accord- 

 ing to which, "Many years ago, a woman from 

 Waimea went out to a ship to see her lover, and as 

 she was about to return, he gave her a bottle, say- 

 ing that there was very little valuable property con- 

 tained in it, but that she must not open it, on any 

 account, until she reached the shore. As soon as 

 she gained the beach, she eagerly uncorked the 

 bottle to examine her treasure, but nothing was to 

 be discovered, — the fleas hopped out, and they have 

 gone on hopping and biting ever since." 



This will perhaps be sufficient to prove that even 

 fleas have an early history, extending backwards 

 into rather dark ages. These pigmy tormentors are 

 better known than respected, all the world over, 

 and in the East especially hold terrible power over 

 the repose of the inhabitants. It is said that the 

 king of fleas holds his court at Tiberias, and cer- 

 tainly Levantine habitations are their delight. 



