12 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 
are simple, in some species very minute ; the antenne are curi- 
ously constructed with three broad, flat, singularly’ lobed 
joints, and are, in nearly all species, closely folded away out 
of sight, in a socket or cavity behind the eyes; though in 
the males of the mouse-flea and pigeon-flea they are exposed 
and carried erect. The mouth organs are peculiarly con- 
structed and well adapted for piercing the skin and sucking 
the blood. The maxille (Figure 16, @), are a pair of broad, 
flat, thin, somewhat lance-shaped organs, bearing at base the 
long, fourjointed feelers or palpi (6). The mandibles ¢e) 
are slender, flattened, sharp, piercing organs, finely serrated 
along their sides, like a minute saw. The Figure 16. 
labium (@) is a round, slender, piercing 
organ, forming the central lancet. The 
“lower lip and labial palpi (¢) form to- 
gether a sort of sheath, with-a groove on 
the inside, which receives the mandibles 
and labium, when in their natural. posi- 
tion; the labial palpi are four-jointed in the cat and dog 
fleas, if not in all, though some writers say they are three- 
jointed. The mandibles (¢) and labium (d@) form together 
three slender lancets, and it is by means of these that the 
flea perforatés the skin. The blood is then drawn up through 
the channels or spaces between these organs and the labial 
palpi and lower lip, by means of a sucking stomach. 
The Cat-flea (Pulex felis Bouché). Figures 17, 18. 
This species of flea is perhaps the best known and most 
common kind in New England. It not only infests nearly all 
cats and the places where they sleep, but is also more or less 
common in dwellings of all classes, especially when cats are 
allowed to roam about over the carpets. It often becomes 
exceedingly troublesome in sleeping rooms, for it prefers to 
spend the day about the floor, in and beneath the carpet 
or in some similar place of concealment; but when oppor. 
Figure 16.—Head of the dog-flea (Pulex canis Curtis), highly magnified: a 
the broad, thin maxille; }, their four-jointed palpi; c, the man dilear a ae 
labrum or central seta of the proboscis; e, the labium and labial palpi. fam 
Duges. Digitized by Microsoft® 
