. W. H. FURLONGE ON THE PULEX IRRTTANS. 13 



stood on their heads, as it were, plunging their mandibles deeply 

 into the epidermis, at the same time rapidly and powerfully dilating 

 their bodies by alternately shortening and elongating them ; and I 

 may observe that I have never been able when feeding my captives 

 to detect the slightest prick or wound from the insertion of their 

 mandibles. In the course of two or three minutes, the first stomach 

 becomes gorged with blood, and if the insect is permitted to remain 

 undisturbed, the blood passes on to the second stomach, presently 

 to be described, the animal emitting jets of dark and semi-digested 

 blood from the anal orifice with such force as sometimes to project 

 the contents of the second stomach to a distance of one or two 

 inches. 



In examining the position and structure of the alimentary and 

 digestive organs, I have found it desirable to select a young and 

 transparent male specimen, as from the absence of the ovaries, and 

 the partially matured eggs which are generally to be found in the 

 female, the course of the digestive canal is more clearly seen. A 

 suitable specimen being found, it is to be kept for about two days 

 without food, then fed in the manner I have described, but not per- 

 mitted to remain on the skin for more than a minute, when it is to 

 be removed and stupefied by the insertion within the test tube of a 

 morsel of blotting paper containing a very small quantity of chloro- 

 form, when it may be placed in the compressor, and gently flattened 

 between the glasses by a very gradual tightening of the screw: 



When viewed under such circumstances in a good binocular with 

 a y^^ths objective, by transmitted light, and especially by dark 

 ground illumination, the sight is extremely interesting, and, I think, 

 very beautiful. The first stomach filled with the bright crimson 

 freshly ingested blood is seen to be undulating incessantly in the 

 manner I attempted to depict by the dotted lines in the drawing of 

 the Pulex exhibited in the reading of my last paper, and since 

 engraved in our Journal. This energetic peristaltic movement — 

 amounting in fact to a violent churning action — 'Of the stomach, 

 sometimes proceeds from the anterior extremity, undulating back- 

 wards, and sometimes the wave originates and proceeds in the 

 reverse direction, as many as two or three waves being often seen 

 in progression at the same time. By this churning action the blood 

 is regurgitated violently backwards and forwards in the stomach, 

 and is, as I think, in this way brought into contact with the gizzard, 

 a very interesting organ presently to be described. 



