The Savannah morning news., 1901-05-12
THE FLEA A NOTED LAND PIRATE,
His BIoodthirstincss and His Great
Strength.


The flea possesses all the piratical in
stincts-bloodthirst, rapacity. cruelty. He
is, further, as ingenious in devising tor
lures as he is unHring in the torment of
his victims. Possibly he cannot help all
this. Possibly it comes from acting out
the nature with which he finds himself
endowed.
The wicked flea is built upon lines that
make him forever hungry The more ra-
paciously he sucks blood the faster it is
voided. In his case indeed, appetite grows
by what he feeds on. In the feeding he as
Stimulates infnitesmally, thereby growing
after a few days of plenty less a starvel-
Ing atom. But his continuous perform
ance appetite is far from being the oldest
thing about him. Proportionately to size,
he is the Samson of the universe. If an
elephant had the same relative strength
he could come near to over setting a steel
framed sky-scraper. A flea, wingless. with
a body out of all proportion to his head,
and all over less than the sixteenth of an
inch in length, will leap upon a strict
plane surface over yard This, too when
he has been Matched I'm hair, or straw, or
sand, and never known what 1t was to
a position analogous to the human stand
ing broad jump. Give him the advantage
of leaping downward and he will easily
cover six feet. More marvellous still me
will spring perpendcularly upward from
one to two feet. Fancy a man or boy
standing fat-footed and all of a sudden
leaping over a church spire.
Wonderful things have been done with
fieas They have been put into gold col
chain at least 100 times their own weight.
Further, one ingenious goldsmith back in
the leisurely seventeenth century made a
coach and four in ivory and gold, with
a coachman upon the box, postillion and
outriders, yet all so tiny 1t was dragged
by a pair of educated neas working in
gold collars. They worked under a bell
glass, and were exhibited in London and
Paris. When their owner fed them 1t was
by setting them on his own wrist and
letting them bite their fll. If the coach
in motion was looked at through a mag
nifying glass II is said that rate of
progress appeared equal to fast post
horses.
To fight like cats and dogs is the syn
onym of continuing strife but even cats
and dogs do not fight so bitterly as cat
fieas and dog-heas. Oddly enough, the
cat-fieas are bigger than the dog-heas,
so should be always victorS. But here
as elsewhere condition tells. II the cat
fieas are lazy and luxurious-fat they can
never grow-the small lean, keen beaker
dog-feas kill them out. The comba tants
stand up to fight quite like a pair of prize
ring ornaments. AS they have six legs,
they have plenty to stand on and still
spare couple with which to belabor each
other Upon neutral ground, as floor
or walk, the cat and dog-feas keep the
place. But let one invade litter, or a coat
sacred to the other. and there is straight
way a fight to a finish. Something even
more curious than this Unborn antipathy
is that dog-fea will not live upon a cat,
nor cat-heas upon a dog.
Fleas lay eggs after the insect manner,
which hatch out tiny wrigglers very near
ly invisible to the naked eye, yet capable
of feeding moisture and microbes-nt
least, on judges that to be the diet,
since ieas breed so largely in sand, hair,
straw and litter where other food is lack
ing-and after a while spinning them
selves cocoons. The cocoons are no big
ger than tiny grains OF sand, burt under
the microscope show as semi-translucent
ovals beautifully banded with pink and