CHAPTER X. 



TROUBLESOME INSECTS. 



Although the skin and jacket of the dog would seem 

 to afford conditions highly favorable for various kinds of 

 free animal parasites there is really only one which has a 

 very decided preference for him, and that is the Piilex 

 cants or flea of the dog. A number of others are occa- 

 sional visitors, yet as a rule they are easily destroyed or 

 affronted and persuaded to leave. But this pest is an 

 eminent exception, and of all questions that engage the 

 minds of owners, how to overcome him is the most dis- 

 turbing, for so great are his pertinacity, vitality and reac- 

 tive powers, many poisons that are speedily fatal to other 

 insects are to him merely sleep-producers that lay him up 

 for an hour or two, when he is as lively and vigorous as 

 ever ; while unfortunately most of the surely destructive 

 agents, which throttle him as it were — oily and viscid 

 liquids — are so highly objectionable that but few care to 

 resort to them. 



It seems to be generally accepted that the Pulex irritans, 

 the human flea, and the Pulex canis, the dog flea, are one 

 and the same. Such is not the case however, for they 



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