TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—The decorated front fage has been retained as illustration.
The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature
THE FLEA
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, Manager
Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET
London: H. K. LEWIS, 136, GOWER STREET, W.C.
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Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
All rights reserved
After a drawing by Dr Jordan
Oriental rat-flea (Xenopsylla cheopis Rothsch.). Male.
Cambridge
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
With the exception of the coat of armsat the foot, the design on the title page is areproduction of one used by the earliest knownCambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521
PREFACE
THE aim of this book is to give in plain languagesome account of a small, but noteworthy, groupof insects. I have avoided, whenever I could, usingthe technical terms of zoology. To avoid doing soentirely is impossible in a book which describes insectsin some detail. No technical term has, I hope, beenused without an explanation.
Over thirty years have elapsed since Taschenberg’sGerman book, Die Flöhe, appeared. Our knowledgehas made enormous strides since then. More speciesof flea are now known from the British Islands alonethan were then known from the whole world. So faras I am aware, no book, devoted to what is knownabout fleas, has ever been published in English.The statements about these insects in the generaltext-books of entomology are frequently antiquatedand inaccurate. But there is a fairly extensiveliterature on the Siphonaptera scattered throughscientific periodicals mostly in English, German,Italian, Dutch and Russian. I have given somereferences in the Bibliography.
The naturalists now living who have devotedany time to the special study of fleas may almostbe counted on one’s fingers. In England thereare Mr Charles Rothschild and Dr Jordan; inthe Shetland Islands, the Rev. James Waterston; inGermany, Taschenberg of Halle and Dampf ofKönigsberg; in Russia, Wagner of Kieff; in Ho