tongue-shaped organ, which is thrown into vibration during respiration, and in this manner the humming sound is produced.

If farmers had means at their disposal for suffocating or otherwise dealing these insects their deathblow, the loud noise they make would disclose their whereabouts, and thousands might be killed before the eggs which contain in embryo the long-lived destroyers could be placed in the earth by their mothers.

"Though numberless these insect tribes of air,

They have their organs, arts, and arms, and tools,
And functions exercised by various rules;
The saw, axe, auger, trowel, piercer, drill.

Attire and food peculiar are assign'd,

And means to propagate their varying kind."

afterwards learned his worth and ranked him among the greatest men of which their country can boast. The deep thoughts of great minds often appear ludicrous to people who judge hastily and are unprepared for new doctrines. Socrates' teaching, that when a man has learned sufficient to know his own ignorance he then begins to become wise, was in his day resented and regarded as foolish talk. Now the saying has become a proverb, and those who have sense know

the truth of the great philosopher's teaching. Men of learning and deep study are not laughed at in our day for spending much time and thought upon the structure and habits of insects; indeed, a great number of people are eager to learn all they can of this wonderful division of the animal creation. It is true that England cannot boast, as at one time Athens could, that every one of her sons is a philosopher; but most of these same sons, and her daughters too, can lay claim to a fair amount of common sense, and they feel inclined to laugh at Aristophanes who, in order to make Socrates appear ridiculous, represented him as measuring the leap of a flea.

When we behold the tiny speck of life and learn that, merely of its own muscular power and entirely without the aid of wings, it can jump a distance of two hundred times its own length, we feel that such an astonishing leap might well attract the attention of an observing man, and sensible folk will ridicule. Aristophanes instead of Socrates.

Everybody would be amazed to hear of a man springing off his feet and alighting 333 yards from the point of starting, and yet possibly we have never stopped to consider that, proportionately, this is the gigantic leap taken by a flea, without preparation or premeditation, on every occasion when danger threatens. It is indebted to its six long muscular legs, the two hindermost ones being especially strong, for the facility with which it can disappear.

The flea is also possessed of an amount of intelligence not always found in insects. Patient men have trained the tiny creatures, and the public has been invited to see them draw minute carriages, cannon and chains, go through a kind of drill, and even stand a volley of Liliputian artillery without stirring from their posts. So great is their strength that a single flea can draw, over a slippery polished glass surface, an object 360 times its own weight!

While we cannot but admire the structure of, and the wonderful feats accomplished by, a creature so tiny, it is almost impossible to stretch our feelings so far as to pretend to any affection for the lively bloodsucker, whose very

LARVA OF A FLEA.

name

brings with it unpleasant thoughts of dirt and discomfort. Still, however, it is to be

found in the palace as well as in the hovel, and it is possible that some of us may like to know a little more than we do at present (though not by personal experience) of the life of the hated and hunted parasite.

The first stage of a flea's life is passed in the form of an egg, which has been deposited, together with eleven brothers and sisters, all hidden in their tiny white shells, in some dusty cranny. After a short time the wee delicate shell bursts and reveals a lively, legless mite of a grub, who comes out of its tiny

prison and proceeds to feed on feathers, dried blood, or any other animal food which may chance to be handy. It is said that the mother flea sucks the blood from some unfortunate individual, and then disgorges it into the open mouth of her offspring—such is maternal affection in flea-life.

The white transparent skin of the larva soon becomes of a reddish colour, probably made so by the nature of its food.

If not brushed away and destroyed with the dust in which it lives, another change comes upon it. With the first symptoms of a failing appetite, the little grub begins to prepare itself for its inactive pupa stage of existence, and spins from

NYMPH OF A FLEA.

its own body a tiny silken cocoon wherein it may abide until such time as it shall be ready to emerge a fully developed flea. It then breaks through its soft cosy covering and hops away in search of the necessaries of life.

Such are the wonderful changes undergone by an insect which we must at the same time both admire and abhor.

Up to the present about a dozen different species have been discovered. They are parasitic on birds. and beast, as well as on our own sacred persons.

Each kind, however, has its own particular fancy in the way of a residence, and prefers to abide on the kind of animal on which it was born.