On the Affinities of the Pulicites, cxlvii 



anteriorly, where it is furnished with two very distinct but short and 

 apparently exarticulate antennae : the thirteenth segment, or telura, 

 has two short appendages, which have been described as hooks; but 

 if we state them to be slightly curved, I think it is all that can be said. 

 These larvae, although perfectly without legs, are extremely vigorous 

 in their movements: and here it must again be mentioned that observ- 

 ers are at variance. Baker, following several earlier writers, says that 

 " if touched, or under any fear, they roll themselves up on a sudden 

 in around figure, and continue motionless for some time; after which 

 they slowly open themselves and crawl away as caterpillars do, with a 

 lively and swift motion." Other authors do not mention this, but de- 

 scribe them as twisting their bodies, when disturbed, into a variety of 

 shapes, and altogether omit all allusion to their power of crawling, 

 which indeed seems greatly to require verification, because, although 

 apod vermiform maggots are not destitute of the power of locomotion, 

 yet they rarely have need of that of crawling or locomotion, being ori- 

 ginally located amongst their food, which they never leave, but therein 

 undergo both ecdysis and metamorphosis. I extremely regret that 

 a hiatus occurs as to the food of the larvae of the flea, but this per- 

 haps is not so important, considering it is an obscurity extending to 

 the larvae of thousands of familiar insects, even to that of the common 

 house-fly.* A very intelligent and most careful observer, states in 

 the ' Encyclopedic Methodique,' that their food consists of particles 

 of congealed blood; Baker, whose account is evidently compiled from 

 earlier sources, says that they closely adhere to the bodies of animals 

 and feed on their juices ; other authors have stated that their food 

 consists of fleshy particles adhering to the feathers and hair of ani- 

 mals. It seems to me highly improbable that this point will ever be 

 definitely settled ; we can do little more than arrive at the conclusion 

 that they subsist upon the substances amongst which they are found ; 

 these are the bodies of unfledged pigeons, the nests of pigeons, the 

 dung on the floors of dove-cotes, the interstices filled with dust be- 

 tween the boards of floors, &c. In the latter situation it is peculiarly 

 difficult to conceive how the congealed blood is supplied, unless they 

 were confined to Rizzio's chamber at Holyrood, where there appears 

 to be an everlasting supply, perhaps still more profitable to the show- 

 woman than to the fleas. 



* Mr. W. Wing has repeatedly found the larva of the house-fly among the accu- 

 mulated dirt of bird-cages, dust-bins, &c, and has promised me a description of it for 

 the ' Zoologist ; ' its food, however, as in the case of the maggot which produces the 

 flea, is still conjectural. 



