FLEAS IN WOODS 



115 



to be a habit of some wild fleas, when the animal 

 they live on dies and grows cold, to place themselves 

 on the surface of the fur and to hop well away when 

 shaken. But we do not yet know very much about 

 their lives. Huxley once said that we were in danger 

 of being buried under our accumulated monographs. 

 There is, one is sorry to find, no monograph on the 

 fleas ; a strange omission, when we consider that 



we have, as the life-work of an industrious German, 

 a big handsome quarto, abundantly illustrated, on 

 the more degraded and less interesting Pedicularia. 



The multitude of fleas, big and black, on my dead 

 squirrel, seemed a ten times bigger puzzle than the 

 one of the squirrel's death. For how had they got 

 there? They were not hatched and brought up on 

 the squirrel: they passed their life as larvae on the 

 ground, among the dead leaves, probably feeding on 



