22 STUDIES IN INSECT LIFE, ETC. 



are like skates, broader than they are tall ; but 

 the flea has a laterally compressed shape, like 

 a mackerel or a herring. Then, again, the three 

 segments or rings which come after the head 

 are not fused into a solid cuirass or thorax as 

 they are in the fly or the bee, but they are 

 movable one on the other. Finally, it is usual 

 in insects for the first joint of the leg to be 

 pressed up against and fused with those segments 

 of the body that bear them, but in the flea, not 

 only is this joint quite free, but the body segment 

 gives off a projection which stretches out to bear 

 the leg. Thus the leg seems, unless carefully 

 studied, to have an extra joint and to be as, 

 indeed, it is of unusual length. They certainly 

 possess unusual powers of jumping as Gas- 

 coigne, a sixteenth-century poet (1540-78) 

 writes : " The hungry fleas which frisk so fresh." 

 The male, as is so often the case amongst the 

 invertebrata, is much smaller than the female. 

 The latter lays at a time from one to five minute, 

 sticky, white eggs, one-fortieth of an inch long 

 by one-sixtieth broad. They are not laid on the 

 host, but in crevices between boards, on the 

 floor, between cracks in the wainscoting, or at 

 the bottom of a dog-kennel or in birds'-nests. 



