HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 
9 
and brass exposed to these fumes will be tarnished unless removed from 
the room or coated with vaseline. 
3. Fumigation of house with bisulphide of carbon or hydrocyanic acid 
gas (the latter a most deadly poison). Neither of these agents should be 
resorted to without consulting a specialist. 
4. A most excellent remedy: Corrosive sublimate, 1 oz.; alcohol, 
pint; turpentine, pint; thoroughly mixed. Spray this into cracks and 
crevices on bedsteads and elsewhere where the bugs may be secreted. Two 
or more applications at intervals of two weeks may be neeecssary. Label 
‘'Poison” and keep out of the way of children. 
5. An old and well known method; Spray joints and cracks with equal 
parts of turpentine and kerosene, then fill all cracks so treated with hard 
soap. 
6. To make them leave a bed temporarily saturate cotton wads with 
pennyroyal, and place in various places about the mattress. 
7. Anointing one’s body just before retiring with spirits of camphor 
will keep fleas away during the night. The same agent would doubtless 
work as well against bed bugs. F. L. W. 
FLEAS. 
Probably the chief species of flea which attacks human beings in 
Minnesota is the common Cat and Dog Flea, (Ctcnocephahis cams and Ct. 
felis), and consequently, the more dogs and cats about a dwelling, or the 
more persistent one or more are 
in being present in the house, with- 
out proper precautions being taken 
to eliminate the fleas which accom- 
pany them, the more will dwellers 
in said house be troubled'. The fact 
that immature fleas, the maggots 
we might call them, develop in the 
dust found in the cracks of a room 
Jfoor, in the material which consti- 
tutes “sweepings,” if they are left 
undisturbed for a time, explains 
why it is that after a protracted 
absence, householders frequently 
And upon returning to their homes, 
which have been closed during 
their absence, countless fleas, the eggs of which were left in rugs or else- 
where by infested house pets before the house was vacated. 
The writer has yet to see a dog or cat which, at some time, is not 
troubled with these pests, and, if proper precautions are not taken, rugs or 
carpets or matting are quite sure to be overrun with the pests, as well as 
the animals themselves. 
Fig. 5. Human Flea. 
Lugger. 
Enlarged. 
