INSECTS AND WAR 3 



mals, the male of the body-louse is smaller and 

 feebler than the female. The former attains a 

 length of about 3 mm., and is about I mm. broad. 

 The female is about 3-3 mm. long and about 

 i '4 mm. broad. It is rather bigger than the 

 hair-louse, and its antennae are slightly longer. 

 It so far flatters its host as to imitate the colour 

 of the skin upon which it lives ; and Andrew 

 Murray gives a series of gradations between the 

 black louse of the West African and Australian 

 native, the dark and smoky louse of the Hindu, 

 the orange of the Africander and of the Hotten- 

 tot, the yellowish-brown of the North and South 

 American Indians, and the paler brown of the 

 Esquimo, which approaches the light dirty-grey 

 colour of the European parasites : 



"As plump an* grey as onie grozet," 



as Burns has it. 



The body-louse was the species dealt with in 

 the recent observations undertaken by Mr. C. 

 Warburton in the Quick Laboratory at Cam- 

 bridge, at the request of the Local Government 

 Board, the authorities of which were' anxious 

 to find out whether the flock used in making 

 cheap bedding was instrumental in distributing 



