12 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



are simple, in some species very minute ; the antennae are curi- 

 ously constructed with three broad, flat, singularly lobed 

 joints, and are, in nearly all species, closely folded away out 

 of sight, in a socket or cavity behind the eyes ; though in 

 the males of the mouse-flea and pigeon-flea they are exposed 

 and carried erect. The mouth organs are peculiarly con- 

 structed and well adapted for piercing the skin and sucking 

 the blood. The maxillae (Figure 16, a), are a pair of broad, 

 flat, thin, somewhat lance-shaped organs, bearing at base the 

 long, four-jointed feelers or palpi (5). The mandibles (#) 

 are slender, flattened, sharp, piercing organs, finely serrated 

 along their sides, like a minute saw. The Figure IG. 



labium (tT) is a round, slender, piercing 

 organ, forming the central lancet. The 

 lower lip and labial palpi (<?) form to- a, 

 gether a sort of sheath, with a groove on 

 the inside, which receives the mandibles 

 and labium, when in their natural posi- d * 

 tion ; the labial palpi are four-jointed in the cat and dog 

 fleas, if not in all, though some writers say they are three- 

 jointed. The mandibles (c) and labium (d) form together 

 three slender lancets, and it is by means of these that the 

 flea perforates the skin. The blood is then drawn up through 

 the channels or spaces between these organs and the labial 

 palpi and lower lip, by means of a sucking stomach. 



The Gat-flea (Pulex felis Bouch4). Figures IT, 18. 

 This species of flea is perhaps the best known and most 

 common kind in New England. It not only infests nearly all 

 cats and the places where they sleep, but is also more or less 

 common in dwellings of all classes, especially when cats are 

 allowed to roam about over the carpets. It often becomes 

 exceedingly troublesome in sleeping rooms, for it prefers to 

 spend the day about the floor, in and beneath the carpet, 

 or in some similar place of concealment ; but when oppor- 



Figure 16. Head of the dog-flea (Pulex ranis Curtis), highly magnified; a, 

 the hroad, thin maxillae ; b, their four-jointed palpi ; c, the mandibles ; d, the 

 labrum or central seta of the proboscis ; e, the labium and labial palpi. From 

 Duges. 



