378 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Dec. 1, 1866, 



Indeed scarcely a nettle has yet been found growing 



to a sufficient size wbich does not yield an excellent 

 fibre for spinning or rope-making. 



Returning again to our common species, we learn 

 that the roots have not only been used in domestic 

 medicine, but that when boiled with alum, a colour- 

 ing matter is developed, which has been employed 

 to dye yarn yellow. The young shoots, when boiled, 

 are by no means to be despised as greens. In Man- 

 chester, and some other parts of Lancashire and the 

 North, "nettle beer" is as well known and appre- 

 ciated as "ginger-pop." Powls are said to be fond 

 of picking up the seeds and eating them, and if 

 the whole plant is cut down and given to cows as 

 food, it is declared to increase the quantity and 

 improve the quality of their milk ; and if strongly 

 salted, this same much-abused plant may be used as a 

 substitute for rennet in making cheese. So that 

 were we to try our best, we could hardly meet with a 

 more useful plant than the nettle, not a fragment of 

 which need be wasted, but all may be applied to 

 some economic purpose. Not only is this true of 

 one species, but also of the majority, although they 

 offer no attractions of sweet odours, bright colours, 

 or handsome flowers, they are, in spite of their 

 stings, good servants to man who abuses them. 



CAT-FLEAS. 



SOME months ago, a person brought me a green 

 baize cushion, with a request to know what 

 certain objects, scattered in considerable numbers 

 over it, were. They were white, small, and oval, 

 and in appearance resembled minute pearls. Upon 

 telling him that probably the cat had made her bed 

 on that cushion for some time past, and those objects 

 were simply the eggs of the cat-flea, he admitted 

 the accuracy of the first of these guesses, and in 

 his disgust nearly dropped the cushion. 



This circumstance, however, appeared to me to be 

 likely to afford the means of verifying the interesting 



Head of Cat-flea, 



and instructive remarks made by Mr. U. Beck, at 

 the Microscopical Society, in October, 1864, so I 

 quickly caught the pad, and transferred the whole 

 of the eggs to a sheet of paper. Together with the 



eggs, which were very numerous, was a quantity of 

 black powder. This, according to Mr. Beck, is the 

 excrement of the flea; and I see no reason to doubt 

 the truth of it. 



The eggs, in total amounting to I suppose about 

 a thousand, were variously distributed. The two 

 friends to whom I gave a considerable quantity each, 

 were not successful in the experiment. The writer 

 enclosed some in glass cells at once, and they hatched 

 in about a week afterwards. A larger number were 

 put into a small bottle, and carried in the pocket 

 for a few hours. This novel sort of iucubatiou was 

 very successful, At night, about eight hours after 



^UliwlUL/^v 



Lavvse of Cat-flea. 



putting them into the bottle, there was a wriggling 

 mass of larv£e, the greater part of them having 

 liberated themselves from the egg already. In many 

 eggs, though, the larvaj might still be seen, and 

 careful watching showed that they shifted their 

 positions inside. 



The exit of many individuals from the shell Avas 

 also observed. Once out of confinement, their 

 appetites seemed to come simultaneously with their 

 liberty, and they fell to on the food I had prepared 

 for them, the black powder aforesaid, which consists 

 of blood, only partly digested. 



Thinking that as heat had so far hastened the 

 result, it might judiciously be applied to still 

 further accelerate the process, means were taken to 

 warm the cell containing the few specimens which 

 had been separated from the rest ; but, unfortu- 



