FLEAS 



147 



Fig. 43. — Human flea, much enlarged. 



seem to frequent houses in the East in large numbers, 

 especially along the Atlantic Coast. For instance, 

 a correspondent from 

 that 



Brooklyn writes 

 he finds his summer 

 home on Long Island 

 badly infested with 

 fleas and sends some 

 specimens for determi- 

 nation. These proved 

 to be the human flea. 

 In California and along 

 the Pacific Coast the 

 human flea is evidently 

 by far the most abun- 

 dant species found in the abodes of man. Doane gives 



a list of the fleas collected 

 from human hosts and 

 houses in San Francisco 

 from February to June, 

 1908. In all, 916 fleas 

 were taken, of which 913 

 were human fleas and 3 

 were the common rat flea, 

 C. fasciatus. McCoy and 

 Mitzmain record the fleas 

 taken from 29 different in- 

 dividuals in California in 

 one year as 337 human 

 fleas and only 5 specimens 

 of other species. This would indicate that Pulex irritans 

 is the normal parasitic flea of man on the Pacific Coast. 



Fig. 44. — Cat and dog flea, much 

 enlarged. 



