14 INSECT PARASITES. 



to their host to feed. The irritation caused by the 

 insertion of their proboscis is, as we know sometimes 

 to our cost, very severe. Just as with us so with 

 poultry, and when numbers are present, as they too 

 often are, they not only prevent rest, which is as 

 necessary for a fowl as a human being, but they in 

 voung birds often cause such severe pruritus that 

 they stunt the growth, like lice. In the case of 

 sitting hens they also are most harmful, helping on 

 the irritation of the lice, which are so often their 

 fellow lodgers. 



The general abode of the Hen-Flea is in dirty 

 nests, where they spend the day, only or generally 

 attacking the birds at night. Anyone can soon 

 catch these vagrants for examination by putting 

 one's hand into a dirty fowl nest, when the little 

 blackish creatures soon hop on to it. 



Life-history of the Hen-Flea. 



The female flea is somewhat larger than the male ; 

 deep black above, testaceous below, the curious comb- 

 like structure of the back of the first segment of the 

 thorax (prothorax) having twenty-six or more teeth 

 in it, thus distinguishing it from the fourteen species 

 of other English fleas. 



The female lays her eggs (nits) in the nests chiefly, 

 but sometimes they are to be found in dung on the 

 floor. Not unfrequently the ova are deposited in 

 crevices in the perches, boards, and in fact wherever 

 there is dirt. It is said that some fleas will live in 



