326 



INSECTS 



This species is found on Mus decumanus (the brown rat), and on 

 M. musculus (the mouse)^. 



Ceratophyllus gallince, Wagner. Bird Flea 



This species occurs in dirty fowl-runs, where it causes harm and 

 irritation to the birds. It has usually been referred to as Pulex avium, 

 Tasch. The report of the Agricultural Department for 1900 states 

 that this insect is common in New Zealand. 



Ctenopsyllus musculi, Wagner. Rat Flea 



This species is also probably found throughout New Zealand, as 

 it occurs on mice, brown rats and black rats {Mus rattus). Dr Russell- 

 Ritchie tells me that it is found on rats in Wellington, but not so 

 commonly as Ceratophyllus fasciatus. 



■^ The connection between rats (or mice) and bubonic plague was evidently 

 known to Asiatic peoples in very far- distant ages. Like many other facts of historic 

 and scientific interest, this knowledge was lost with the wholesale destruction of 

 peoples and libraries which has taken place from time to time in the past. But there 

 is an interesting record of it in the early history of the Jewish people. Somewhere 

 about the nth century B.C., as narrated in the First Book of Samuel (Chap, iv-vi), 

 during the ever-recurring wars between the Philistines and the Israelites, the latter 

 were defeated with great slaughter in a battle fought near Aphek, and the Ark of 

 God was taken, and was conveyed to the house of Dagon in Ashdod. There is a 

 mixture of history and of priest-lore in the succeeding narrative, but we are told 

 "the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, 

 and smote them with emerods " ( =hEemorrhoids or bubonic glands ?). In other words 

 they were attacked by some very deadly and infectious plague. The lords of the 

 Philistines sent the ark to Gath, " and it was so, that, after they had carried it about, 

 the hand of the Lord was against the city with a very great destruction : and he 

 smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their 

 secret parts." Then they sent it to Ekron, and the plague broke out there. In their 

 desperation, thinking it was a visitation of vengeance of the God of Israel, they 

 resolved to return it to the people from whom it was originally taken, and to accom- 

 pany it with a trespass offering. This offering consisted of five golden emerods and 

 five golden mice, which probably may be more correctly translated rats, though 

 mice and rats are equally transmitters of bubonic plague. The further mixture of 

 history and priestly superstition is recorded at the end of Chap. vi. The ark was 

 placed on a cart to which two cows were attached, and they were set towards the 

 land of Israel and allowed to go wherever they liked. They took the road to Bethshe- 

 mesh, and the arrival of the ark was hailed by the people with joy. But they carried 

 the plague with them, for the priestly record says: "He smote the men of Beth- 

 shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people 

 fifty thousand and threescore and ten men. And the people lamented, because the 

 Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." It is a most interesting 

 narrative, and shows that at that early date the rulers knew that there was some 

 relation between the plague and the rats or mice, even though they did not know 

 t hat fleas were the carriers of the infection. 



