PULEX, the FLEA, (Encycl.) This bloodthirsty insect, which fattens at the expence of the human species, prefers the more delicate skin of women; but preys neither upon epileptic persons, nor upon the dead or dying. It loves to nestle in the fur of dogs, cats, and rats. The nests of river-swallows are sometimes plentifully stored with them.
Fleas are apterous; walk but little, but leap to a height equal to 200 times that of their own body. This amazing motion is performed by means of the elasticity of their feet, the articulations of which are so many springs. Thus it eludes, with surprising agility, the pursuit of the person on whom it riots.—Through the microscope its form appears monstrous; and from observations made on the generation of fleas, we know them to be oviparous. The eggs, which are exceeding smooth and slippery, are deposited at the base of the hairs of animals, and on blankets, &c. In four or five days time, the egg, being hatched, produces a little nimble larva that feeds on grease down. When touched, it rolls itself up into a ball. After it has crept for some time with great swiftness, it spins a small downy cocoon, which it is careful to keep in concealment. A fortnight after, it issues from its tomb, but leaping, and under the form of a flea. Among the memorabilia of fleas, one, they say, has been seen to draw a small silver piece of ordnance to which it was fastened, the firing of the gun nowise daunting its intrepidity. The owner carried it about in a little box lined with velvet, every now and then placing it on her arm to let it feed; but winter put an end to the being of this martial flea. Another flea that became slave to an Englishman, had, for its daily and easy task, to drag its golden chain and padlock, of the weight of one grain. A third flea served as a thill-horse to an English artist, who had made an ivory coach and six, that carried a coachman with his dog between his legs, a postillion, two footmen, and four inside riders.—Mercurial ointment, brimstone, a fumigation with the leaves of penny-royal, or fresh-gathered leaves of that plant sewed up in a bag, and laid in the bed, are remedies pointed out as destructive of fleas.