CLASS I. INSECTA: ORDER 13. ANOPLURA. 
597 
ORDER 12. MALLOPHAGA. 
This small order — from the Greek mallos, wool, and phago, to eat — is composed of insects 
bearing a general resemblance to the lice, with which, in fact, they are arranged by many authors. 
They differ from them in having the mouth always formed for biting, being furnished with a pair 
of hooked mandibles, and distinct upper and lower lips. Instead of sucking the blood of the 
animals on which they are parasitic, the Mallophaga devour the most dcHcate portions of their 
hair or feathers ; frequently attacking these organs at the moment of their sprouting through the 
skin. They are especially common upon birds, few of them being free from such parasites ; and 
some species also infest quadrupeds. As nearly every species of bird has at least one of these 
peculiar to itself, their numbers are by no means small, and they have been formed into numerous 
genera. 
ORDER 13. ANOPLURA. 
Neither the habits nor the appearance of the insects forming the present order — whose name is 
derived from the Greek anoplos, unarmed, and oura, a tail — are such as to render them particu- 
larly attractive objects. Small as they are, perhaps no other insects inspire so much disgust as 
Lice, being generally regarded as the concomitants of dirty habits. They have a flattened and 
semi-transparent body, with a distinctly separated head, which bears a pair of short, five-jointed 
antennae, and one or two simple eyes on each side, and is furnished beneath with a soft, retractile 
proboscis, within Avhich are four bristle-like organs. 
These animals are all parasitic upon mammiferous animals, of which almost every species has 
its peculiar louse, Avhile some of them harbor three or four distinct species. Four species inhabit 
the human subject, two of which are common, the Head-Louse, Pediculus capitis, and the Body- 
Louse, P. vestimentorum ; the F. tahescentium has only been occasionally observed, but always 
in vast numbers, either causing or accompanying a complaint under which the patient appears 
gradually to waste away. Several instances are recorded in ancient authors of death being- 
caused by this disease, which is termed phthiriasis, from the Greek phtheir, a louse. The Roman 
dictator, Sylla, the two Herods, the Emperor Maximian, and Philip IL of Spain, are said to 
have died of this loathsome malady. 
These insects generally infest those parts of their hosts which are most thickly covered with 
hair, among which they creep about with ease by means of their grasping claws. They attach 
their eggs, which are of a pear shape, and called JVits, to the hairs, and the young are excluded 
in a few days. They undergo no metamorphosis, and are soon capable of reproduction ; so 
that their numbers rapidly increase, when proper measures for their eradication are neglected. 
THE PEATiNG-BEETLE. — (See page 589.) 
