PARASITES. 89 



What is still more astonishing, is to meet with males 

 which, mider the conditions to which we have just 

 alluded, come at last to seek for assistance from their 

 own female, so that she has to provide for all ; and the 

 charitable animal which comes to her help takes the 

 whole family under his charge. Assistance is thus 

 thoroughly organized in the lower world ; neighbours are 

 found which serve as a cr-eche for the indigent when they 

 first quit the egg, others as a hospital for the infirm 

 adults or the females, and others again play the part of 

 innkeepers for all, instead of affording a place of refuge 

 for some privileged individuals. 



There are but few animals, if indeed there are any, 

 which have not their peculiar parasites. Of all the fishes 

 of our coasts we have never found but one which had 

 none ; and perhaps, could we observe this fish in different 

 latitudes, we might find that it had its poor dependants 

 as well as the rest. 



Thus we may assume that no animal is free in this 

 respect, and man himself regularly affords hospitality to 

 many of them. We feed some with our blood and our 

 flesh ; there are some which lodge on the surface of our 

 skin, others in the interior of our organs ; some prefer to 

 establish themselves on children, others on adults. The 

 name alone of some is sufficient to make us shudder, 

 while others live peaceably in some crypt, without our 

 suspecting their presence. Who is there that does not 

 nourish some acari, of the genus Simonea, in the mem- 

 brane of the nose ? In fact, man gives a home to some 

 dozens of parasites, and the presence of the most terrible 

 among them constitutes, in certain countries, a condition 

 of health which is envied. The Abyssinians do not 



