COMMON FLEA. :*> 



persons. It feeds by means of its trunk, or proboscis, which 

 is very sharp, and furnished, towards the upper part, 

 with a few reversed prickles. When it is engaged in 

 sucking any animal, the blood may be seen, through 

 the transparency of its external covering, to rush, like a 

 torrent, into the stomach. Lice are bred from eggs, or 

 nits as they are usually called, which the parent insects 

 fasten to the hairs. And such is the rapidity of their 

 increase, that it has been pleasantly, though not very 

 correctly, said, that a Louse becomes a grandfather in 

 four-and-twenty hours. The best mode of expelling or 

 destroying these insects is by cleanliness, pepper, pre- 

 cipitate or infusion of tobacco. 



21. FLEA TRIBE. 



There are only two known species of Fleas : they both 

 live on the blood of animals. 



Common Flea. The strength and agility of this little 

 insect are, in proportion, much greater than those of 

 any other animal with which we are acquainted. It is 

 able to drag a weight many times heavier than itself ; 

 and to leap to a distance of more than two hundred 

 times the length of its own body. The Flea is a much 

 less disgusting creature than the louse ; and is said some- 

 times even to have become a favourite with ladies, who 

 have amused themselves by keeping, taming, and feeding 

 it. Fleas are produced from eggs, which the females 

 stick, by a glutinous substance, to the roots of hairs, or 

 the wool of blankets or rugs. Of these eggs they lay ten 

 or twelve in a day, for several days successively ; and they 

 are hatched in the course of five or six days afterwards. 

 A kind of whitish worms, or maggots, issue from the 



