FLEAS 157 



organic matter for their development. No scheme of 

 floor covering could be better for fleas. In severe in- 

 festations nothing but the removal of all floor coverings 

 followed by a thorough washing of the floors with strong 

 soapsuds will avail. 



Sometimes the persistent use of buhach, in which it is 

 sifted over the carpets, along the baseboards, and in all 

 hiding places for fleas, becomes effectual. But, in some 

 cases, it has utterly failed. 



Again, sprinkling the carpets and floors with benzine 

 is often successful. Great care should be exercised re- 

 garding fire while benzine is being applied. 



Where only a few fleas are present in a room they may 

 be caught by spreading a white cloth on the floor, and as 

 they alight on the cloth, attracted by the white color, 

 they may be caught by picking them up one by one on 

 the end of the moistened finger and destroyed. 



In one instance, a large room was greatly relieved of 

 an infestation of fleas by having a man, with sticky fly 

 paper tied around his legs, walk up and down the room. 

 As the insects were disturbed by the walker they would 

 jump on to the paper and stick fast. In this way hundreds 

 of them were caught. 



It is said that a thorough spraying of a room with oil 

 of pennyroyal will drive the fleas out. 



In work in the South the author has had many com- 

 plaints of cases where the whole premises were overrun 

 with an infestation of fleas. This will often happen in a 

 warm country where houses are set up on foundations 

 some distance from the ground and open beneath. Such 

 conditions give opportunity for dogs and cats to range 

 beneath the house unmolested and to become sources 



