Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1901-07-31
THE FLEA A REGULAR PI- ATE,
its Ferotity, Thirst for Blood and As,or-
ishing Eeats of Strength.


ishing Feats of Strength.
The flea possesses all the piratical
instincts-thirst for blood, rapacity,
cruelty. He is, further, as ingenious
in devising torments as he is untir-
ing in the torment of his victims.
The flea is built upon lines that
make him forever hungry. But his
continuous performance appetite is far
from being the oddast thing about
him. ProportionatelS 20 size, he is the
Samson of the universe. If an ele-
phant had the same relative strength
he would come near to oversetting a
steel framed sky scraper.
A flea, wingess, with body out of
all proportio. to his head, and all
over less than the 18th of an inch in
length, will leap upon plane sur
face more than a yard. This, too,
when he has been hatched in hair, or
straw, or sand, and never known what
it was to have a full meal. More mar
vellous still, he will spring perpen-
dicularly upward from one to two feet.
Fancy man or boy standing fiat
footed and all of a sudden leapinS
over church spire.
Wonderful things have been done
with tieas. They have been put into
gold collars and set to drag about
lengths of gold chain at least 100 times
their own weight. Further. an ingen-
ious goldsmith back in the leisurely
18th century made coach and four
in ivory and gold, with coachman
upon the box, position and outriders,
yet all so tidy it was dragged by
pair of fleas, working in gold collars.
They worked under bell glass, and
were exhibited in London and Paris.
To fight like cats and dogs is the
synonym of continuing strife, but even
cats and dogs do not night so bitterly
as cat fleas and dog flsas. Oddly
enough the cat feas are bigger than
the dog fieas, so should be always vic
tors. But here as elsewhere condition
tells. If the cat fleas are lazy and
luxurious-fat they can never grow
the small, lean, keen beaked dog fleas
kill them out.
The combatants stand UP to fight
quite like pair Of prize ring orna-
ments. AS they have six legs they
have plenty to stand on and still spare
a couple with which to belabor each
other. Upon neutral ground, as floor
or walk, the cat and dog fieas keep
the peace. But let one invade litter or
a coat sacred to the other, and there is
straightway a fight to a finish. Some
thing even more curious than this in
born antipathy is that dog feas will
not live upon a cat not cat fleas uDon
a dog.
Fleas lay eggs after the insect man
ner, which hatch out tiny wrigglers
ve:y nearly invisible to the naked eye,
yet capable of feeding on moisture
and microbes-at least one judges that
to be the diet, since leas breed so
largely in sand, hair, straw and litter
where other food is lacking-and after
while spinning themselves cocoons.
The cocoons are no bigger than tiny
grains Of seri. but under -1e micro
scnSn et'nH' as seml7-It apslucsnt s9yals:
shs fal'v landed IN 8
paas: e are. :,zt'ss suuponaa,- Is
..i.a ,SacT:x, whatever j. !ha.: n:s, .'asio
the sun or the light can strike them
fair. Rain just at the Matching time
often kills whole brood of sandfleas
A flea's beak is sharp and hard,
something like a birds, only more
pointed. A feabite is not poisonous,
save and except in rare cases where a
flea has previously been biting infect
ed tissue. Certain French scientists
have shown that both feas and bed
bugs could thus carry tubercular in
lection. Further, rats and rat fieas
are greatly dreaded as helping to
spread the fearful bubonic plague
New York Sun.