J j6 ofi ihe life fif a flea. Aug. li, 



was greatly afflicted with pains of the gout, and ha- 

 ving staid by desire to dine with her, fhe bad me 

 take notice, after dinner, of a flea on her hand. Sur- 

 prised at such discourse, I looked at the hand, and 

 saw indeed a plump and pampered flea, sucking greedi- 

 ly, and kept fast to it by a little gold chain. The lady 

 afsured me, flie had nursed and kept the little ani- 

 mal at that time, full six years, with exceeding great 

 care, having fed it twice every day with her blood, 

 and when it had satisfied its appetite, fhe put it up 

 in a little box lined with silk. In a month's time, 

 being recovered from her illnefs, £he set out from 

 Copenhagen with her flea ; but, having returned in 

 about a year after, I took an opportunity of waiting 

 upon her, and among other things, afked after her 

 little insect. She answered me with great concern, 

 that it died through the neglect of her waiting wo- 

 man. What I found remarkable in this story was, 

 that the lady being attacked by chronical pains in 

 the limbs, had recourse in France to a mercurial sa- 

 livation during six weeks ; and all this time the flea 

 had not ceased to feed upon her blood imbued with 

 the vapours of mercury, and yet was not the worse 

 for It, which fhows how much its constitution is dif- 

 ferent from that of the louse, to which mercury is a 

 mortal poison. 



