200 PROC. ENT. SOC. WASH., VOL. 24, NO. 7-8, OCT.-NOV., 1922 



Chaerephon, thus precipitating an argument as to how far a flea 

 could jump! They did not, however, attempt to measure in 

 terms of the length of body of the insect as Butler infers, but 

 dipped the feet of the flea in melted wax which presently har- 

 dened into shoes, which they took ofFand used as a unit of length 

 in measuring the leap. 



Imagination is the poet's stock-in-trade, and, although the 

 occurrence of parthenogenesis, pedogenesis, and polyembryony 

 among insects have prepared the entomologist for almost any- 

 thing in the way of biological phenomena, it has remained for 

 Owen Meredith to "go all of these one better," in a poem called 

 "Small People": 



"The Wasp told the Midge and the Gnat, 

 And the Gnat told the Flea and the Nit. 

 The Nit dropped an egg as she sat; 

 The Flea shrugged his shoulders and bit." 



We were quite prepared for the bite of the flea, that was to be 

 expected, but the astounding action of the nit leaves us entirely 

 flabbergasted! 



According to Shakespeare: 



"A dozen white louses do become an old coat well; 

 It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love." 



Merry Wives of Windsor, 



Fortunately the opinion expressed in the first line of this passage 

 no longer prevails, but that the insect again became "a familiar 

 beast to man" during the Great War, many an American soldier 

 will testify. He learned to know, however, that it signifies not 

 love, but death, and that in a horrible form! Illustrative of the 

 vagaries of the poets is the reaction produced in the mind of 

 Robert Burns by the sight of a louse (filthy vector of a terrible 

 disease), on the bonnet of a lady in church ! This vision inspired 

 a poem which culminates in one of the wittiest and most sapient 

 passages in all poetry, now famous the world over: 



"O, wad some pow'r the giftie gie us 

 To see oursels as ithers see us! 

 It wad frae monie a blunder free us." 



Sometimes the nit or egg of the louse is mentioned, as in Shakes- 

 peare: 



"And his page on the other side, that handfull of wit, 

 Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!" 



The nit of the louse at that time was recognized as in some way 

 related to it, but was not identified as the egg of the pest until 

 long afterwards. 



In Butler's day it was quite the thing to ridicule the embryonic 



