8o NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



no attempt need be made to distinguish them. Rabbits, 

 squirrels, rats and mice, moles, hens, and many other 

 animals have each their peculiar flea, but for elementary 

 study they may all be treated alike. 



From a lady's dress, on which a kitten had been 

 fondled for a short time, fully a teaspoonful of fleas' eggs 

 was collected. Few people ever think of this part of the 

 life story, but here it naturally begins. The eggs are 

 white, oval, and may be distinguished readily from particles 

 of dust by the unaided eye that knows them. They are laid 



Fig. 32, Dog and Cat Flea 

 Egg, larva, and adult. (All enlarged. After Howard) 



generally in the hair of the infested animal, or wherever 

 else the fleas happen to be, and are easily shaken off to 

 the ground or floor, where the eggs hatch and the larvae 

 develop. The larvae are slender, white, footless, active, 

 wormlike little creatures. They feed upon the particles 

 of dust in carpets or cracks of floors or out of doors 

 upon decaying vegetation in the soil. The pupal stage is 

 also passed in the dust, where the larvae feed. The egg 

 hatches in about fifty hours ; the larva completes its 

 growth in seven days ; and, after eight days spent in the 

 cocoon, the adult emerges. Thus about seventeen days 



