594 INSECTS AT HOME. 



is as if melted lead were being continually poured over the joint. 

 Fever rages through the frame, and the first endeavour of the 

 surgeon is to subdue it as much as possible. Under such 

 circumstances, it may well be imagined that the ceaseless 

 attacks of the Flea armies were not calculated to produce 

 quietude, and, indeed, had the occupier of the bed been in 

 perfect health and strength, one such night would have sufficed 

 to drive him into a fever. The only portion of the skin that 

 escaped was that which was covered by the bandages, and even 

 there the dreadful little insects had found out the junctions of 

 the bandages, forced themselves under the edges, and driven 

 their beaks into the skin, so that when the bandage was 

 removed in the morning, its course could be traced by the 

 rows of fleabites. 



The insects had never enjoyed such a chance of a banquet in 

 their lives, and naturally made tile most of it. But, I cannot 

 but wonder on what food they had subsisted before any 

 wretched human being was delivered over to them. Genera- 

 tion after generation must have been hatched, lived, and died, 

 and never even seen a particle of blood. No animals of any 

 kind ever remained in the room, which was entirely disused, 

 and, as I have mentioned, only entered for a minute or two 

 daily, and that at a time when all the Fleas were safe in their 

 hiding-places. 



The larvae are hatched about the beginning of autumn, pass 

 the winter in the larval condition, and change to pupas in the 

 spring of the following year. One of these pupae is shown on 

 Woodcut LXIX. Fig. 2. When it first escapes from the larval 

 skin it is white, but it rapidly assumes the well-known 

 reddish- brown hue of the perfect insect. In this state it is 

 perfectly qiiiescent, the legs being enclosed in separate cases, 

 and so remains for about a fortnight, when it throws off the 

 pupal skin and emerges as a perfect Flea, read}^ to exercise its 

 wonderful apparatus of laceration and suction, if it should only 

 be fortunate enough to find a subject. 



The Flea is possessed of an amount of muscular power which 

 is really enormous in comparison with the size of the insect. 

 How great is this strength is shown by tlie performances of the 

 Industrious Fleas, of which we have all heard, and which some of 

 us have seen. One of these insects will draw beliind it a weight 



O 



