The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1901-08-01
THE FLEA A PIRATE.
is FERoClOUS, BLoOOTHIRSTY
AND SAMSoNlAN.
his Strength in Proportion TO His
Size IL Greater than That of Any
Other Living Thing-His Pugnacity
and His Many Activities.

The flea possesses all the piratical in
stlncts-thirst for blood, rapacity, cru
city. lie is, further, as ingenious In de
Vislng tortures as he Is untirlng ia the
torment of his victims.
The flea Is built upon lines that make
him forever hungry. But his continu-
GUS performance appetite is far from
being the oldest thing about him. Pro
portionately to size, he is the Samson
Of the universe. If an elephant had the
same relative strength he could come
near to overseeing steel-framed sky
seraper.
flea, wlngless, with q body out of
all proportion to his head, and all over
less than the sixteenth of an inch In
length, will leap upon a plane surface
more than yard. This, too, when he
has been Matched In hair, or straw, or
sand, and never known what 1t was
TO have full meal. More marvellous
still, he will spring perpendicularly
upward from one to two feet. Fancy
man or boy standing flat-footed and
all OF sudden leaping over a church
spire.
Wonderful things have been done
with fleas. They have been put into
gold collars and set to drag about
lengths of gold chain at least one hun
dred times their own weight. Fur
Their, an ingenious goldsmith back in
the leisurely seventeenth century
made coach and four in ivory and
gold, with a coachman upon the box,
position and outriders, yet all so tidy
1t was dragged by a pair Of feas,
working In gold collars They worked
under a 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 fight so bit
terly as cat fieas and dog fleas. Oddly
enough, the cat fieas are bigger than
the dog 6eas. 80 should be always VIC
tors. But here as elsewhere condition
tells. II the cat feas are lazy and lux
urious-fat they can never grow-the
small, lean, keen-beaked dog fieas kill
them out.
The combatants stand up to fight
quite like a pair OF prize-ring orna-
ments. 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 fleas keep the
peace. But let one invade litter or
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 leas will not
live upon a cat nor cat fleas upon a
dog.
Fleas lay eggs after the insect man
ner, which hatch out tiny wrlgglers
very nearly invisible to the naked eye,
yet capable Of feeding on moisture and
least one judges that TO be
the diet. since feas breed so largely In
sand, hair, straw and litter where other
food Is lacklng-and after a while spin
ming themselves cocoons. The eocoons
are no bigger than tiny grains of sand,
but under the microscope show as semi.
oyals beautifully banded
with pink and pearl. They are formed
upon top of the matrix. which ever It
may be where the sun or the light can
strike them fair. Rain just at the
Matching time often kills whole brood
of sandfleas.
fiea's beak is sharp and hard, some
thing like a birds, only more pointed.
A fleablte Is not poisonous, save and
except In rare cases where flea has
been biting infected tissue.
Certain French scientists have shown
that both feas and bedbugs could thus
carry tubercular Infection. Further
rats and rat tieas are greatly dreaded
as helping to spread the fearful bu-
bonic plague.-New York sun.