Household Pests and Their Treatment. 77 



California and probably other states at seaports. In San Fran- 

 cisco where plague somewhat recently appeared it constituted, 

 according to a census taken by Rucker, nearly twenty-two per 

 cent, of the fleas found on rats, the human flea constituting 5.57 

 per cent, and the dog flea 0.52 per cent. The greater proportion 

 (68.07%) of the fleas found on rats by this author belonged to 

 a species (Ceratophyllus fasciatus), the common rat flea of the 

 United States, sometimes attacking man, but different from the 

 India species. This flea may not carry the plague, but this 

 remains to be proved, and since a closely related species 

 (C. aeutus) infesting ground squirrels is known to carry the 

 ailment, it is well to guard against any of the fleas, especially 

 during times of special danger. 



CLOTHES-MOTHS, 



In June each year during, or a little after housecleaning 

 time, one sometimes sees a small brown moth flit before him as 

 he reads by lamplight. With a wavering flight it traverses the 

 room if not knocked down and quickly destroyed by the irate 

 housekeeper. A clothes-moth is one of the few livings things 

 that gets no mercy at the hands of the women folk. A toad, 

 or even a spider, has a fair chance for its life when they are 

 about. And indeed it deserves no mercy. When our winter 

 clothing is put away in wardrobes or closets and we leave home 

 for a vacation these small mischief makers enter silently and 

 begin their work of destruction. The eggs are placed about 

 woolens and furs, and soon small worms or larvae begin to 

 eat their way among them, making little holes thru the 

 fabrics, releasing the hair of furs and cutting up generally, so 

 that when these garments are taken out in the fall they may 

 have been rendered unfit for wear. 



Two species are common in Kentucky, both small brown 

 moths when adult and belonging to a small group of families 

 containing other mischief-working species, such as the grain 

 moths and numerous leaf miners of cultivated plants and fruit 

 trees. Our clothes-moths have probably been introduced from 

 Europe, tho this is not certain, as the injuries have been 



