HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 
11 
benefited. Floors may also well be treated with this same preparation, 
using it twice as strong- as for dogs, and the animal’s bedding or matting 
upon which it sleeps can be frequently submerged with good results. Of 
course, fleas will return to a cat or dog when suflicient time has elapsed 
after treatment as above. We must remember that neglected bedding is 
the chief source of trouble. If the dog or cat previously freed from fleas be 
allowed access to a room a few days after the room is treated as above, all 
surviving fleas will seek the animal for food. Thus it serves as a trap, and 
can be treated again with Creolin to kill the insects thus caught. An 
entomologist known to the writer, claims to have freed several rooms in 
a dwelling of this pest, by scattering four or five pounds of flake naphthaline 
over the floor of one room, closing the room for twenty-four hours. Then 
he opened and aired the room, sweeping up the naphthaline and transferring 
it to another room. 
The writer has found, when obliged to sleep in a flea-ridden house, 
that, by applying spirits of camphor over his body freely before getting 
into a bed which was under suspicion, he was not troubled. But if any 
entomologist is enthusiastic enough to desire to study the habits of the 
genus during the night hours, he will find plenty of material to work 
with by attempting to sleep (“composing himself to sleep” might be a good 
expression to use), in one of the old log barns about which hogs roam in 
numbers, located on almost any mountain ranch in the Pacific Coast Range. 
F. L. W. 
THE SILVER FISH. 
The illustration accompanying this article gives a good idea of the 
appearance of this insect, which, at times, is a pest in households. About 
half an inch long, silvery-white in color, almost fish-like in shape, quick 
in its movements. It is sometimes seen rapidly 
scurrying about among unused books on shelves not 
often disturbed, and in bureau drawers where cloth- 
ing is stored. It belongs to the lowest order or 
group of insects, which ordinarily furnishes us with 
but few, if any, insect pests. Sometimes, however, 
the silver fish not only injures books, but also has 
been known to injure rugs made of silk, and even 
destroy silk dresses by eating holes in the same. It 
also eats holes in wall paper in seeking the starch 
or glue beneath it. These injuries are brought about 
apparently by its appetite for the glue and starch 
used either as sizing in cloth or paper, or in the 
binding of books. 
Remedies. — Careful housecleaning in severe 
cases should help in eradicating or lessening the number 
of this pest. Dusting shelves and drawers generously with Pyrethum (Persian 
insect Powder, Buhach, Dalmatian Insect Powder) would be beneficial. The 
