THE LIFE HISTORY AND CONTROL OF FLEAS 369 



infested areas sprinkled heavily with salt and wet down by sprinkling. 

 Repeat the wetting operation at intervals of five to ten days, according 

 to the condition of the soil. Usually two or three treatments are 

 sufficient. 



Where fumigation can not be practiced and it is desirable to get rid 

 of the adults at once without waiting for them to starve, a number of 

 procedures may be followed. If in habitations, sprinkling flaked naphtha- 

 lene over the floor at the rate of four or five pounds to each two or three 

 hundred feet, closing the rooms up for a few hours, and then sweeping 

 the material to the next room together with the stunned fleas is very 

 effective. Pyrethrum may be used in a similar way. In barns and base- 

 ments spraying with kerosene emulsion will accomplish the destruction 

 of most of the active adults. 



Where adults are abundant in sheds, bams, and hog yards, we have 

 found that the light but general spraying of the infested areas with 

 creosote oil (at least 10 per cent tar acids) will accomplish striking 

 results. 



In buildings where fleas are breeding in the cracks of the floors or 

 under rugs and carpets, these should be removed, the house thoroughly 

 swept and the floors washed with strong soap or lye water, or if feasible, 

 they may be sprayed with gasoline or kerosene emulsion. The free use 

 of sweeping compounds and floor oils will largely eliminate subsequent 

 trouble. 



In treating premises infested with sticktight fleas it is important that 

 all fowls be excluded from beneath houses and barns. These conditions 

 prevail largely in the South where this pest becomes annoying. If this 

 precaution is taken and the fowls are kept in sheds which admit plenty of 

 sunshine and air, and the infested, places be treated with salt and water 

 no attention need be given to the fleas upon the host. 



Repellents, Isolation and Trapping. — The wearing of shoes and leg- 

 gings will largely exclude the chigoe flea. While cleaning up infested 

 premises it has been found that the laborers can exclude the fleas and at 

 the same time catch large numbers of them by wrapping the legs with 

 paper covered with tanglefoot. To prevent fleas attacking one at night 

 the use of flaked naphthalene or pyrethrum dusted in the bed clothing will 

 give a degree of immunity. 



Since fleas are comparatively limited in their ability to jump (greatest 

 height of any species about eight inches, greatest horizontal distance 

 about thirteen inches) cots and beds may be protected by isolating their 

 legs in pans of water or by wrapping them with paper or cloth treated 

 Avith tanglefoot. The bed clothing should, of course, be kept tucked up 

 so as not to reach near the floor and individuals should remove all clothing 

 and be free from fleas when entering the bed. 



