Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1902-07-03

Astonishing Feats of Strength of the Pirate
of the Insect World.
Baltimore Sun.
The flea possesses all the piratical
instincts--thirst for blood, .rapacity,
cruelty. He is, further, as ingenious
in devising fortunes as he is untiring
in the torment of his victims.
The flea is built upon lines that
make him forever hungry. But his
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. 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 overseeing steel
frame sky-soraper.
A flea, wingless, 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 plane surface
more than yard. This, too, when he
has been Matched in hair, or straw, or
sand, and never known what it was to
have full meal. More marvellous still,
he will spring perpendicularly upward
from one to two feet. Fancy man Oh
a boy standing flat-footed and all of q
sudden leaping over church spire
Wonderful things have been done
with heas. They have been put into
| gold collars and set to drag about
| lengths of gold chain at least one hun
bred times their own weight. Further,
an ingenious goldsmith back in the
\ leisurely seventeenth century made a
coach and four in ivory and gold, with
| a coachmau on the box, postiiion and
outriders, yet all so tidy it vas dragged
| by pair of heas, 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 as bitterly
as fleas. Oddly enough, the cat feas
are bigger than the dog fieas, so should
be always victors. But here, as else
where, condition tells. If the cat fieas
are lazy and luxurious they can
never growt the small, lean deg flea
| kills them out.
| The combatant 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
a couple with which to belabor zach
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 fight to a finish. Some
! thing even more curious than this in-
born antipathy is that dog feas will
not live upon cat nor cat fleas upon
dog.
Fleas lay eggs after the insect man.
ner which hatch out tiny wrigglers verJ
nearly invisible to the naked eye, yel
capable of feeding on moisture and
microbes-at least, one judges that ia
be the diet, since feas breed so largely
in hair, sand, straw and litter where
other food is lacking-an after while
spinning themselves eocoons.
The cocoons are no bigger than tiny
grains of sand, but under the micro
scope show semi translucent uvals
beautifully banded together with pink
and pearl. They are formed upon toT
of the matrix, whatever it may Lei
whore the sun or the light can STRIKE
them fair Rain just at tho Matching
time often kills whole brood of sand
fleas.
A flea's beak is sharp and hard,
something like a birds, only more
pointed. A flea bite is not poisonous,
save and except in rare cases where a
flea has previously been biting infected
tissue. Certain French scientists have
shown that both fleas and bedbugs
could thus carry tubercular infection.
Further, rats and rat fleas are greatly
dreaded as helping to spread the .ear-
full bubonic plague.