The daughter of the toy-maker, with whom I spoke afterwards, and who was rather “good-looking,” in the literal sense of the word, than beautiful, said that she could not describe how it was that she had learnt to plane and gauge the boards. It seemed to come to her all of a sudden—quite natural-like, she told me; though, she added, it was most likely her affection for her poor father that made her take to it so quick. “I felt it deeply” she said, “to see him take to his bed, and knew that I alone could save him from the workhouse. No! I never felt tired over the work,” she continued, in answer to my questions, “because I know that it is to make him comfortable.”
I should add, that I was first taken to this man by the surgeon who attended him during his long suffering, and that gentleman not only fully corroborated all I heard from his ingenious and heroic patient, but spoke in the highest possible terms of both father and daughter.
These winged tormentors are not, like most of our apterous enemies, calculated to excite disgust and nausea when we see or speak of them; nor do they usually steal upon us during the silent hours of repose (though the gnat or mosquito must be here excepted), but are many of them very beautiful, and boldly make their attack upon us in open day, when we are best able to defend ourselves.
The active fly, so frequently an unbidden guest at your table (Mouffet, 56), whose delicate palate selects your choicest viands, at one time extending his proboscis to the margin of a drop of wine, and then gaily flying to take a more solid repast from a pear or a peach—now gambolling with his comrades in the air, now gracefully carrying his furled wings with his taper feet—was but the other day a disgusting grub, without wings, without legs, without eyes, wallowing, well pleased, in the midst of a mass of excrement.
“The common house-fly,” says Kirby, “is with us sufficiently annoying at the close of summer, so as to have led the celebrated Italian Ugo Foscolo, when residing here, to call it one of the ‘three miseries of life.’” But we know nothing of it as a tormentor, compared with the inhabitants of southern Europe. “I met,” says Arthur Young, in his interesting Travels through France, between Pradelles and Thurytz, “mulberries and flies at the same time. By the term flies, I mean those myriads of them which form the most disagreeable circumstances of the southern climates. They are the first torments in Spain, Italy, and the olive district of France; it is not that they bite, sting, or hurt, but they buzz, teaze, and worry; your mouth, eyes, ears, and nose are full of them: they swarm on every eatable—fruit, sugar, everything is attacked by them in such myriads, that if they are not incessantly driven away by a person who has nothing else to do, to eat a meal is impossible. They are, however, caught on prepared paper, and other contrivances, with so much ease and in such quantities, that were it not for negligence they could not abound in such incredible quantities. If I farmed in these countries, I should manure four or five acres every year with dead flies. I have been much surprised that the learned Mr. Harmer should think it odd to find, by writers who treated of southern climates, that driving away flies was of importance. Had he been with me in Spain and in Languedoc in July and August, he would have been very far from thinking there was anything odd in it.”—(Young’s Travels in France, i. 298.)
It is a remarkable, and, as yet, unexplained fact, that if nets of thread or string, with meshes a full inch square, be stretched over the open windows of a room in summer or autumn, when flies are the greatest nuisance, not a single one will venture to enter from without; so that by this simple plan, a house may be kept free from these pests, while the adjoining ones which have not had nets applied to their windows will swarm with them. In order, however, that the protection should be efficient, it is necessary that the rooms to which it is applied should have the light enter by one side only; for in those which have a thorough light, the flies, strange to say, pass through the meshes without scruple.
For a fuller account of these singular facts, the reader is referred to a paper by W. Spence, in Trans. Ent. Soc. vol. i. p. 1, and also to one in the same work by the Rev. E. Stanley, late Lord Bishop of Norwich, who, having made some of the experiments suggested by Mr. Spence, found that by extending over the outside of his windows nets of a very fine pack-thread, with meshes one inch and a quarter to the square, so fine and comparatively invisible that there was no apparent diminution either of light or the distant view, he was enabled for the remainder of the summer and autumn to enjoy the fresh air with open windows, without the annoyance he had previously experienced from the intrusion of flies—often so troublesome that he was obliged on the hottest days to forego the luxury of admitting the air by even partially raising the sashes.
“But no sooner,” he observes, “had I set my nets than I was relieved from my disagreeable visitors. I could perceive and hear them hovering on the other side of my barriers; but though they now and then settled on the meshes, I do not recollect a single instance of one venturing to cross the boundary.”
“The number of house-flies,” he adds, “might be greatly lessened in large towns, if the stable-dung in which their larvæ are chiefly supposed to feed were kept in pits closed by trap-doors, so that the females could not deposit their eggs in it. At Venice, where no horses are kept, it is said there are no house-flies; a statement which I regret not having heard before being there, that I might have inquired as to its truth.”—(Kirby and Spence’s Entom. i. 102, 3.)
This short account of flies would be incomplete without a description of their mode of proceeding when they regale themselves upon a piece of loaf-sugar, and an account of the apparatus with which the Creator has furnished them in order to enable them to walk on bodies possessing smooth surfaces, and in any position.
“It is a remark[2] which will be found to hold good, both in animals and vegetables, that no important motion or feeling can take place without the presence of moisture. In man, the part of the eye which is the seat of vision is always bedewed with moisture; the skin is softened with a delicate oil; the sensitive part of the ear is filled with a liquid; but moisture is still more abundant in our organs of taste and smell than in any of the other senses. In the case of taste, moisture is supplied to our mouth and tongue from several reservoirs (glands) in their neighbourhood, whence pipes are laid and run to the mouth. The whole surface, indeed, of the mouth and tongue, as well as the other internal parts of our body, give out more or less moisture; but besides this, the mouth, as we have just mentioned, has a number of fountains expressly for its own use. The largest of these fountains lies as far off as the ear on each side, and is formed of a great number of round, soft bodies, about the size of garden-peas, from each of which a pipe goes out, and all of these uniting together, form a common channel on each side. This runs across the cheek, nearly in a line with the lap of the ear and the corner of the mouth, and enters the mouth opposite to the second or third of the double teeth (molares) by a hole, into which a hog’s bristle can be introduced. There are, besides, several other pairs of fountains, in different parts adjacent, for a similar purpose.
“We have been thus particular in our description, in order to illustrate an analogous structure in insects, for they also seem to be furnished with salivary fountains for moistening their organs of taste. One of the circumstances that first awakened our curiosity with regard to insects, was the manner in which a fly contrives to suck up through its narrow sucker (haustellum) a bit of dry lump-sugar; for the small crystals are not only unfitted to pass, from their angularity, but adhere too firmly together to be separated by any force the insect can exert. Eager to solve the difficulty, for there could be no doubt of the fly’s sucking the dry sugar, we watched its proceedings with no little attention; but it was not till we fell upon the device of placing some sugar on the outside of a window, while we looked through a magnifying-glass on the inside, that we had the satisfaction of repeatedly witnessing a fly let fall a drop of fluid upon the sugar, in order to melt it, and thereby render it fit to be sucked up; on precisely the same principle that we moisten with saliva, in the process of mastication, a mouthful of dry bread, to fit it for being swallowed—the action of the jaws, by a beautiful contrivance of Providence, preparing the moisture along the channels at the time it is most wanted. Readers who may be disposed to think the circumstance of the fly thus moistening a bit of sugar fanciful, may readily verify the fact themselves in the way we have described. At the time when we made this little experiment, we were not aware that several naturalists of high authority had actually discovered by dissection the vessels which supply the saliva in more than one species of insect.”
“In the case of their drinking fluids, like water, saliva is not wanted; and it may be remarked, when we drink cold water it actually astringes and shuts up the openings of the salivary pipes. Hence it is that drinking does not quench thirst when the saliva is rendered viscid and scanty by heat, by fatigue, or by the use of stimulant food and liquor; and sometimes a draught of cold water, by carrying off all the saliva from the mouth, and at the same time astringing the orifices of the ducts, may actually produce thirst. Ices produce this effect on many persons. It is, no doubt, in consequence of their laborious exertions, as well as of the hot nature of their acid fluids producing similar effects, that ants are so fond of water. We have seen one quaff a drop of dew almost as large as its whole body; and when we present those in our glass formicaries with water, they seem quite insatiable in drinking it.”[3]
Rennie, in his Insect Miscellanies, after describing the pedestrian contrivances with which various insects are furnished, says,[4]—“The most perfect contrivance of this kind, however, occurs in the domestic fly (Musca domestica), and its congeners, as well as in several other insects. Few can have failed to remark that flies walk with the utmost ease along the ceiling of a room, and no less so upon a perpendicular looking-glass; and though this were turned downwards, the flies would not fall off, but could maintain their position undisturbed with their backs hanging downwards. The conjectures devised by naturalists to account for this singular circumstance, previous to the ascertaining of the actual facts, are not a little amusing. ‘Some suppose,’ says the Abbé de la Pluche, ‘that when the fly marches over any polished body, on which neither its claws nor its points can fasten, it sometimes compresses her sponge and causes it to evacuate a fluid, which fixes it in such a manner as prevents its falling without diminishing the facility of its progress; but it is much more probable that the sponges correspond with the fleshy balls which accompany the claws of dogs and cats, and that they enable the fly to proceed with a softer pace, and contribute to the preservation of the claws, whose pointed extremities would soon be impaired without this prevention.’ (Spect. de la Nat. vol. i. p. 116.) ‘Its ability to walk on glass,’ says S. Shaw, ‘proceeds partly from some little ruggedness thereon, but chiefly from a tarnish, or dirty, smoky substance, adhering to the surface; so that, though the sharp points on the sponges cannot penetrate the surface of the glass, it may easily catch hold of the tarnish.’ (Nature Displ. vol. iii. p. 98, Lond. 1823.) But,” adds Rennie, “it is singular that none of these fanciers ever took the trouble to ascertain the existence of either a gluten squeezed out by the fly, or of the smoky tarnish on glass. Even the shrewd Réaumur could not give a satisfactory explanation of the circumstance.”
“The earliest correct notion on this curious subject was entertained by Derham, who, in mentioning the provision made for insects that hang on smooth surfaces, says, ‘I might here name divers flies and other insects who, besides their sharp-hooked nails, have also skinny palms to their feet, to enable them to stick to glass and other smooth bodies by means of the pressure of the atmosphere—after the manner as I have seen boys carry heavy stones with only a wet piece of leather clapped on the top of the stone.’ (Physico-Theology, vol. ii. p. 194, note b, 11th edit.) The justly-celebrated Mr. White, of Selborne, apparently without the aid of microscopical investigation, adopted Derham’s opinion, adding the interesting illustration, that in the decline of the year, when the flies crowd to windows and become sluggish and torpid, they are scarcely able to lift their legs, which seem glued to the glass, where many actually stick till they die; whereas they are, during warm weather, so brisk and alert, that they easily overcome the pressure of the atmosphere.”—(Nat. Hist. of Selborne, vol. ii. p. 274.)
“This singular mechanism, however,” continues Rennie, “is not peculiar to flies, for some animals a hundred times as large can walk upon glass by the same means.” St. Pierre mentions “a very small lizard, about a finger’s length, which climbs along the walls, and even along glass, in pursuit of flies and other insects” (Voyage to the Isle of France, p. 73); and Sir Joseph Banks noticed another lizard, named the Gecke (Lacerta Gecha, Linn.), which could walk against gravity, and which made him desirous of having the subject thoroughly investigated. On mentioning it to Sir Everard Home, he and Mr. Bauer commenced a series of researches, by which they proved incontrovertibly, that in climbing upon glass, and walking along the ceilings with the back downwards, a vacuum is produced by a particular apparatus in the feet, sufficient to cause atmospheric pressure upon their exterior surface.
“The apparatus in the feet of the fly consists of two or three membranous suckers, connected with the last joint of the foot by a narrow neck, of a funnel-shape, immediately under the base of each jaw, and movable in all directions. These suckers are convex above and hollow below, the edges being margined with minute serratures, and the hollow portion covered with down. In order to produce the vacuum and the pressure, these membranes are separated and expanded, and when the fly is about to lift its foot, it brings them together, and folds them up, as it were, between the two claws. By means of a common microscope, these interesting movements may be observed when a fly is confined in a wine-glass.” (Phil. Trans. for 1816, p. 325.)
“It must have attracted the attention of the most incurious to see, during the summer, swarms of flies crowding about the droppings of cattle, so as almost to conceal the nuisance, and presenting instead a display of their shining corslets and twinkling wings. The object of all this busy bustle is to deposit their eggs where their progeny may find abundant food; and the final cause is obviously both to remove the nuisance, and to provide abundant food for birds and other animals which prey upon flies or their larvæ.
“The same remarks apply with no less force to the ‘blow-flies,’ which deposit their eggs, and in some cases their young, upon carcases. The common house-fly (the female of which generally lays 144 eggs) belongs to the first division, the natural food of its larvæ being horse-dung; consequently, it is always most abundant in houses in the vicinity of stables, cucumber-beds, &c., to which, when its numbers become annoying, attention should be primarily directed, rather than having recourse to fly-waters.”—(Rennie’s Insect Miscellany, p. 265.)
Besides the common house-fly, and the other genera of the dipterous order of insects, there is another not unfrequent intruding visitor of the fly kind which we must not omit to mention, commonly known as the blue-bottle (Musca vomitoria, Linn.). The disgust with which these insects are generally viewed will perhaps be diminished when our readers are informed that they are destined to perform a very important part in the economy of nature. Amongst a number of the insect tribe whose office it is to remove nuisances the most disgusting to the eye, and the most offensive to the smell, the varieties of the blue-bottle fly belong to the most useful.
“When the dead carcases of animals begin to grow putrid, every one knows what dreadful miasmata exhale from them, and taint the air we breathe. But no sooner does life depart from the body of any creature—at least from any which, from its size, is likely to become a nuisance—than myriads of different sorts of insects attack it, and in various ways. First come the histers, and pierce the skin. Next follow the flesh-flies, covering it with millions of eggs, whence in a day or two proceed innumerable devourers. An idea of the despatch made by these gourmands may be gained from the combined consideration of their numbers, voracity, and rapid development. The larvæ of many flesh-flies, as Redi ascertained, will in twenty-four hours devour so much food, and gnaw so quickly, as to increase their weight two hundred-fold! In five days after being hatched they arrive at their full growth and size, which is a remarkable instance of the care of Providence in fitting them for the part they are destined to act; for if a longer time was required for their growth, their food would not be a fit aliment for them, or they would be too long in removing the nuisance it is given them to dissipate. Thus we see there was some ground for Linnæus’s assertion, under Musca vomitoria, that three of these flies will devour a dead horse as quickly as would a lion.”—(Kirby and Spence, i.)
The following extraordinary fact, given by Kirby and Spence, concerning the voracity of the larvæ of the blow-fly, or blue-bottle (Musca vomitoria), is worth while appending:—
“On Thursday, June 25th, died at Asbornby, Lincolnshire, John Page, a pauper belonging to Silk-Willoughby, under circumstances truly singular. He being of a restless disposition, and not choosing to stay in the parish workhouse, was in the habit of strolling about the neighbouring villages, subsisting on the pittance obtained from door to door. The support he usually received from the benevolent was bread and meat; and after satisfying the cravings of nature, it was his custom to deposit the surplus provision, particularly the meat, between his shirt and skin. Having a considerable portion of this provision in store, so deposited, he was taken rather unwell, and laid himself down in a field in the parish of Stredington; when, from the heat of the season at that time, the meat speedily became putrid, and was of course struck by the flies. These not only proceeded to devour the inanimate pieces of flesh, but also literally to prey upon the living substance; and when the wretched man was accidentally found by some of the inhabitants, he was so eaten by the maggots, that his death seemed inevitable. After clearing away, as well as they were able, these shocking vermin, those who found Page conveyed him to Asbornby, and a surgeon was immediately procured, who declared that his body was in such a state that dressing it must be little short of instantaneous death; and, in fact, the man did survive the operation but for a few hours. When first found, and again when examined by the surgeon, he presented a sight loathsome in the extreme. White maggots of enormous size were crawling in and upon his body, which they had most shockingly mangled, and the removal of the external ones served only to render the sight more horrid.” Kirby adds, “In passing through this parish last spring, I inquired of the mail-coachman whether he had heard this story; and he said the fact was well known.”
One species of fly infests our houses (Stomoxys calcitrans), which so nearly resembles the common house-fly (Musca domestica), that the difference is not easily detected except by an entomologist; indeed the resemblance is so close as to have led to the vulgar error that the common house-fly occasionally indulges itself by a feast upon our blood, after it has fed to satiety upon the delicacies which it picks from our tables. It is even a greater torment than the horse-fly.
“This little pest,” says Kirby, referring to the Stomoxys, “I speak feelingly, incessantly interrupts our studies and comfort in showery weather, making us even stamp like the cattle by its attacks on our legs, and if we drive it away ever so often, returning again and again to the charge.” In Canada they are infinitely worse. “I have sat down to write,” says Lambert, (who, though he calls it the house-fly, is evidently speaking of the Stomoxys), “and have been obliged to throw away my pen in consequence of their irritating bite, which has obliged me every moment to raise my hand to my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, in constant succession. When I could no longer write, I began to read, and was always obliged to keep one hand constantly on the move towards my head. Sometimes, in the course of a few minutes, I would take half-a-dozen of my tormentors from my lips, between which I caught them just as they perched.”—(Travels. &c. i. 126.)
But of all the insect-tormentors of man, none are so loudly and universally complained of as the species of the genus Culex, L., whether known by the name of gnats or mosquitos. It has been generally supposed by naturalists that the mosquitos of America belong to the Linnæan genus Culex; but Humboldt asserts that the term mosquito, signifying a little fly, is applied there to a Senicilium, Latr. (Senicilia, Meig.), and that the Culices, which are equally numerous and annoying, are called Zancudoes, which means long-legs. The former, he says, are what the French call Moustiques, and the latter Maringouins. (Personal Narrative, E. T., v. 93.)
Humboldt’s remark, however, refers only to South America. Mr. Westwood informs us that Mosquito is certainly applied to a species of Culex in the United States, the inhabitants giving the name of black-fly to a small Senicilium. Pliny, after Aristotle, distinguishes well between Hymenoptera and Diptera, when he says the former have their sting in the tail, and the latter in the mouth; and that to the one this instrument is given as the instrument of vengeance, and to the other of avidity.
But the instrument of avidity in the genus of which I am speaking is even more terrible than that of vengeance in most insects that are armed with it. It instils into its wound a poison (as appears from the consequent inflammation and tumour), the principal use of which is to render the blood more fluid and fitter for suction. This weapon, which is more complex than the sting of hymenopterous insects, consisting of five pieces besides the exterior sheath—some of which seem simply lancets, while others are barbed like the spiculæ of a bee’s sting—is at once calculated for piercing the flesh and forming a syphon adapted to imbibe the blood. There are several species of this genus whose bite is severe; but none is to be compared to the common gnat (Culex pipiens, L.), if, as has been generally affirmed, it be synonymous with the mosquito, though, in all probability, several species are confounded under both names.
In this country they are justly regarded as no trifling evil; for they follow us to all our haunts, intrude into our most secret retirements, assail us in the city and in the country, in our houses and in our fields, in the sun and in the shade; nay, they pursue us to our pillows, and keep us awake by the ceaseless hum of their rapid wings (which, according to the Baron C. de Latour, are vibrated 3000 times per minute), and their incessant endeavours to fix themselves upon our face, or some uncovered part of our body; whilst, if in spite of them we fall asleep, they awaken us by the acute pain which attends the insertion of their oral stings, attacking with most avidity the softer sex, and trying their temper by disfiguring their beauty.
In Marshland in Norfolk, the inhabitants are said to be so annoyed by the gnats, that the better sort of them, as in many hot climates, have recourse to a gauze covering for their beds, to keep them off during the night.
I discovered a colony of “catch-’em-alive” boys residing in Pheasant-court, Gray’s-inn-lane.
From the pleasing title given to this alley, one might almost be led to imagine it was a very delightful spot, though it is only necessary to look down the little bricken archway that marks its entrance, and see the houses—dirty as the sides of a dust-bin, and with the patched counterpanes and yellow sheets hanging from the windows—to feel assured that it is one of the most squalid of the many wretched courts that branch out from Gray’s-inn-lane.
I found the lads playing at “pitch and toss” in the middle of the paved yard. They were all willing enough to give me their statements; indeed, the only difficulty I had was in making my choice among the youths.
“Please, sir, I’ve been at it longer than him,” cried one with teeth ribbed like celery.
“Please, sir, he ain’t been out this year with the papers,” said another, who was hiding a handful of buttons behind his back.
“He’s been at shoe-blacking, sir; I’m the only reg’lar fly-boy,” shouted a third, eating a piece of bread as dirty as London snow.
A big lad with a dirty face, and hair like hemp, was the first of the “catch-’em-alive” boys who gave me his account of the trade. He was a swarthy-featured boy, with a broad nose like a negro’s, and on his temple was a big half-healed scar, which he accounted for by saying that “he had been runned over” by a cab, though, judging from the blackness of one eye, it seemed to have been the result of some street-fight. He said:—
“I’m an Irish boy, and near turned sixteen, and I’ve been silling fly-papers for between eight and nine year. I must have begun to sill them when they first come out. Another boy first tould me of them, and he’d been silling them about three weeks before me. He used to buy them of a party as lives in a back-room near Drury-lane, what buys paper and makes the catch ’em alive himself. When they first came out they used to charge sixpence a-dozen for ’em, but now they’ve got ’em to twopence ha’penny. When I first took to silling ’em, there was a tidy lot of boys at the business, but not so many as now, for all the boys seem at it. In our court alone I should think there was above twenty boys silling the things.
“At first, when there was a good time, we used to buy three or four gross together, but now we don’t do more than half a gross. As we go along the streets we call out different cries. Some of us says, ‘Fly-papers, fly-papers, ketch ’em all alive.’ Others make a kind of song of it, singing out, ‘Fly-paper, ketch ’em all alive, the nasty flies, tormenting the baby’s eyes. Who’d be fly-blow’d, by all the nasty blue-bottles, beetles, and flies?’
“People likes to buy of a boy as sings out well, ’cos it makes ’em laugh.
“I don’t think I sell so many in town as I do in the borders of the country, about Highbury, Croydon, and Brentford. I’ve got some regular customers in town about the City-prison and the Caledonian-road; and after I’ve served them and the town custom begins to fall off, then I goes to the country.
“We goes two of us together, and we takes about three gross. We keep on silling before us all the way, and we comes back the same road. Last year we sould very well in Croydon, and it was the best place for gitting a price for them; they’d give a penny a-piece for ’em there, for they didn’t know nothing about them. I went off one day at tin o’clock and didn’t come home till two in the morning. I sould eighteen dozen out in that d’rection the other day, and got rid of them before I had got half-way.
“But flies are very scarce at Croydon this year, and we haven’t done so well. There ain’t half as many flies this summer as last.
“Some people says the papers draws more flies than they ketches, and that when one gets in, there’s twenty others will come to see him.
“It’s according to the weather as the flies is about. If we have a fine day it fetches them out, but a cold day kills more than our papers.
“We sills the most papers to little cook-shops and sweetmeat-shops. We don’t sill so many at private-houses. The public-houses is pretty good customers, ’cos the beer draws the flies. I sould nine dozen at one house—a school—at Highgate, the other day. I sould ’em two for three-ha’pence. That was a good hit, but then t’other days we loses. If we can make a ha’penny each we thinks we does well.
“Those that sills their papers at three a-penny buys them at St. Giles’s, and pays only three-ha’pence a dozen for them, but they an’t half as big and good as those we pays tuppence-ha’penny a dozen for.
“Barnet is a good place for fly-papers; there’s a good lot of flies down there. There used to be a man at Barnet as made ’em, but I can’t say if he do now. There’s another at Brentford, so it ain’t much good going that way.
“In cold weather the papers keep pretty well, and will last for months with just a little warming at the fire; for they tears on opening when they are dry. You see we always carry them with the sticky sides doubled up together like a sheet of writing-paper. In hot wither, if you keep them folded up, they lasts very well; but if you opens them, they dry up. It’s easy opening them in hot weather, for they comes apart as easy as peeling a horrange.
“We generally carries the papers in a bundle on our arm, and we ties a paper as is loaded with flies round our cap, just to show the people the way to ketch ’em. We get a loaded paper given to us at a shop.
“When the papers come out first, we used to do very well with fly-papers; but now it’s hard work to make our own money for ’em. Some days we used to make six shillings a-day regular. But then we usen’t to go out every day, but take a rest at home. If we do well one day, then we might stop idle another day, resting. You see, we had to do our twenty or thirty miles silling them to get that money, and then the next day we was tired.
“The silling of papers is gradual fallen off. I could go out and sill twenty dozen wonst where I couldn’t sill one now.
“I think I does a very grand day’s work if I yearns a shilling. Perhaps some days I may lose by them. You see, if it’s a very hot day, the papers gets dusty; and beside, the stuff gets melted and oozes out; though that don’t do much harm, ’cos we gets a bit of whitening and rubs ’em over.
“Four years ago we might make ten shillings a-day at the papers, but now, taking from one end of the fly-paper sason to the other, which is about three months, I think we makes about one shilling a-day out of papers, though even that aint quite certain. I never goes out without getting rid of mine, somehow or another, but then I am obleeged to walk quick and look about me.
“When it’s a bad time for silling the papers, such as a wet, could day, then most of the fly-paper boys goes out with brushes, cleaning boots. Most of the boys is now out hopping. They goes reg’lar every year after the sason is give over for flies.
“The stuff as they puts on the paper is made out of boiled oil and turpentine and resin. It’s seldom as a fly lives more than five minutes after it gets on the paper, and then it’s as dead as a house. The blue-bottles is tougher, but they don’t last long, though they keeps on fizzing as if they was trying to make a hole in the paper. The stuff is only p’isonous for flies, though I never heard of any body as ever eat a fly-paper.”
The second lad I chose from among the group of applicants was of a middle age, and although the noisiest when among his companions, had no sooner entered the room with me, than his whole manner changed. He sat himself down, bent up like a monkey, and scarcely ever turned his eyes from me. He seemed as nervous as if in a witness-box, and kept playing with his grubby fingers till he had almost made them white.
“They calls me ‘Curley.’ I come from Ireland too. I’m about fourteen year, and have been in this line now, sir, about five year. I goes about the borders of the country. We general takes up the line about the beginning of June, that is, when we gets a good summer. When we gets a good close dull day like this, we does pretty well, but when we has first one day hot, and then another rainy and could, a’ course we don’t get on so well.
“The most I sould was one day when I went to Uxbridge, and then I sould a gross and a half. I paid half-a-crown a gross for them. I was living with mother then, and she give me the money to buy ’em, but I had to bring her back again all as I took. I al’us give her all I makes, except sixpence as I wants for my dinner, which is a kipple of pen’orth of bread and cheese and a pint of beer. I sould that gross and a half I spoke on at a ha’penny each, and I took nine shillings, so that I made five and sixpence. But then I’d to leave London at three or four o’clock in the morning, and to stop out till twelve o’clock at night. I used to live out at Hammersmith then, and come up to St. Giles’s every morning and buy the papers. I had to rise by half-past two in the morning, and I’d get back again to Hammersmith by about six o’clock. I couldn’t sill none on the road, ’cos the shops wasn’t open.
“The flies is getting bad every summer. This year they a’n’t half so good as they was last year or the year before. I’m sure I don’t know why there aint so many, but they aint so plentiful like. The best year was three year ago. I know that by the quantity as my customers bought of me, and in three days the papers was swarmed with flies.
“I’ve got regular customers, where I calls two or three times a week to ’em. If I was to walk my rounds over I could at the lowest sell from six to eight dozen at ha’penny each at wonst. If it was nice wither, like to-day, so that it wouldn’t come wet on me, I should make ten shillings a-week regular, but it depends on the wither. If I was to put my profits by, I’m sure I should find I make more than six shillings a-week, and nearer eight. But the season is only for three months at most, and then we takes to boot-cleaning. Near all the poor boys about here is fly-paper silling in the hot weather, and boot-cleaners at other times.
“Shops buys the most of us in London. In Barnet I sell sometimes as much as six or seven dozen to some of the grocers as buys to sell again, but I don’t let them have them only when I can’t get rid of ’em to t’other customers. Butchers is very fond of the papers, to catch the blue-bottles as gets in their meat, though there is a few butchers as have said to me, ‘Oh, go away, they draws the flies more than they ketches ’em.’ Clothes-shops, again, is very fond of ’em. I can’t tell why they is fond of ’em, but I suppose ’cos the flies spots the goods.
“There’s lots of boys going silling ‘ketch ’em alive oh’s’ from Golden-lane, and Whitechapel, and the Borough. There’s lots, too, comes out of Gray’s-inn-lane and St. Giles’s. Near every boy who has nothing to do goes out with fly-papers. Perhaps it aint that the flies is falled off that we don’t sill so many papers now, but because there’s so many boys at it.”
The most intelligent and the most gentle in his demeanour was a little boy, who was scarcely tall enough to look on the table at which I was writing. If his face had been washed, he would have been a pretty-looking lad; for, despite the black marks made by his knuckles during his last fit of crying, he had large expressive eyes, and his features were round and plump, as though he were accustomed to more food than his companions.
Whilst taking his statement I was interrupted by the entrance of a woman, whose fears had been aroused by the idea that I belonged to the Ragged School, and had come to look after the scholars. “It’s no good you’re coming here for him, he’s off hopping to-morrow with his mother, as has asked me to look after him, and it’s only your saxpence he’s wanting.”
It was with great difficulty that I could get rid of this lady’s company; and, indeed, so great appeared to be the fear in the court that the object of my visit was to prevent the young gentlemen from making their harvest trip into the country, that a murmuring crowd began to assemble round the house where I was, determined to oppose me by force, should I leave the premises accompanied by any of the youths.
“I’ve been longer at it than that last boy, though I’m only getting on for thirteen, and he’s older than I’m; ’cos I’m little and he’s big, getting a man. But I can sell them quite as well as he can, and sometimes better, for I can holler out just as loud, and I’ve got reg’lar places to go to. I was a very little fellow when I first went out with them, but I could sell them pretty well then, sometimes three or four dozen a-day. I’ve got one place, in a stable, where I can sell a dozen at a time to countrypeople.
“I calls out in the streets, and I goes into the shops, too, and calls out, ‘Ketch ’em alive, ketch ’em alive; ketch all the nasty black-beetles, blue-bottles, and flies; ketch ’em from teazing the baby’s eyes.’ That’s what most of us boys cries out. Some boys who is stupid only says, ‘Ketch ’em alive,’ but people don’t buy so well from them.
“Up in St. Giles’s there is a lot of fly-boys, but they’re a bad set, and will fling mud at gentlemen, and some prigs the gentlemen’s pockets. Sometimes, if I sells more than a big boy, he’ll get mad and hit me. He’ll tell me to give him a halfpenny and he won’t touch me, and that if I don’t he’ll kill me. Some of the boys takes an open fly-paper, and makes me look another way, and then they sticks the ketch ’em alive on my face. The stuff won’t come off without soap and hot water, and it goes black, and looks like mud. One day a boy had a broken fly-paper, and I was taking a drink of water, and he come behind me and slapped it up in my face. A gentleman as saw him give him a crack with a stick and me twopence. It takes your breath away, until a man comes and takes it off. It all sticked to my hair, and I couldn’t rack (comb) right for some time.
“When we are selling papers we have to walk a long way. Some boys go as far as Croydon, and all about the country; but I don’t go much further than Copenhagen-fields, and straight down that way. I don’t like going along with other boys, they take your customers away; for perhaps they’ll sell ’em at three a-penny to ’em, and spoil the customers for you. I won’t go with the big boy you saw ’cos he’s such a blackgeyard; when he’s in the country he’ll go up to a lady and say, ‘Want a fly-paper, marm?’ and if she says ‘No,’ he’ll perhaps job his head in her face—butt at her like.
“When there’s no flies, and the ketch ’em alive’s is out, then I goes tumbling. I can turn a cat’enwheel over on one hand. I’m going to-morrow to the country, harvesting and hopping—for, as we says, ‘Go out hopping, come in jumping.’ We start at three o’clock to-morrow, and we shall get about twelve o’clock at night at Dead Man’s Barn. It was left for poor people to sleep in, and a man there was buried in a corner. The man had got six farms of hops; and if his son hadn’t buried him there, he wouldn’t have had none of the riches.
“The greatest number of fly-papers I’ve sold in a day is about eight dozen. I never sells no more than that; I wish I could. People won’t buy ’em now. When I’m at it I makes, taking one day with another, about ten shilling a-week. You see, if I sold eight dozen, I’d make four shillings. I sell them at a penny each, at two for three-ha’pence, and three for twopence. When they gets stale I sells ’em at three a-penny. I always begin by asking a penny each, and perhaps they’ll say, ‘Give me two for three-ha’pence.’ I’ll say, ‘Can’t, ma’am,’ and then they pulls out a purse full of money and gives a penny.
“The police is very kind to us, and don’t interfere with us. If they sees another boy hitting us they’ll take off their belts and hit ’em. Sometimes I’ve sold a ketch ’em alive to a policeman; he’ll fold it up and put it in his pocket to take home with him. Perhaps he’s got a kid, and the flies teazes its eyes.
“Some ladies like to buy fly-cages better than ketch ’em alive’s, because sometimes when they’re putting ’em up they falls in their faces, and then they screams.”
In a small attic-room, in a house near Drury-lane, I found the “catch ’em alive” manufacturer and his family busy at their trade.
Directly I entered the house where I had been told he lodged, I knew that I had come to the right address; for the staircase smelt of turpentine as if it had been newly painted, the odour growing more and more powerful as I ascended.
The little room where the man and his family worked was as hot as an oven; for although it was in the heat of summer, still his occupation forced him to have a fire burning for the purpose of melting and keeping fluid the different ingredients he spread upon his papers.
When I opened the door of his room, I was at first puzzled to know how I should enter the apartment; for the ceiling was completely hidden by the papers which had been hung up to dry from the many strings stretched across the place, so that it resembled a washerwoman’s back-yard, with some thousands of red pocket-handkerchiefs suspended in the air. I could see the legs of the manufacturer walking about at the further end, but the other part of his body was hidden from me.
On his crying, “Come in!” I had to duck my head down, and creep under the forest of paper strips rustling above us.
The most curious characteristic of the apartment was the red colour with which everything was stained. The walls, floor, and tables were all smeared with ochre, like the pockets of a drover. The papers that were drying were as red as the pages of a gold-leaf book. This curious appearance was owing to part of the process of “catch ’em alive” making consisting in first covering the paper with coloured size, to prevent the sticky solution from soaking into it.
The room was so poorly furnished, that it was evident the trade was not a lucrative one. An old Dutch clock, with a pendulum as long as a walking-stick, was the only thing in the dwelling which was not indispensable to the calling. The chimneypiece—that test of “well-to-do” in the houses of the poorer classes—had not a single ornament upon it. The long board on which the family worked served likewise as the table for the family meals, and the food they ate had to be laid upon the red-smeared surface. There was but one chair, and that the wife occupied; and when the father or son wished to sit down, a tub of size was drawn out with its trembling contents from under the work-table, and on this they rested themselves.
“We are called in the trade,” said the father, “fly-paper makers. They used to put a nice name to the things once, and call ’em Egyptian fly-papers, but now they use merely the word ‘fly-papers,’ or ‘fly-destroyers,’ or ‘fly-catchers,’ or ‘catch ’em alive, oh.’
“I never made any calculation about flies, and how often they breeds. You see, it depends upon so many things how they’re produced: for instance, if I was to put my papers on a dung-heap, I might catch some thousands; and if I was to put a paper in an ice-well, I don’t suppose I should catch one.
“I know the flies produce some thousands each, because if you look at a paper well studded over with flies, you’ll see—that is, if you look very carefully—where each fly has blown, as we call it, there’ll be some millions on a paper, small grubs or little mites, like; for whilst struggling the fly shoots forth the blows, and eventually these blows would turn to flies.
“I have been at fly-catcher making for the last nine years. It’s almost impossible to make any calculation as to the number of papers I make during the season, and this is the season. If it’s fine weather, then flies are plentiful, and the lads who sell the papers in the streets keep me busy; but if it’s at all bad weather, then they turn their attention to blacking boots.
“It’s quite a speculation, my business is, for all depends upon the lads coming to me to buy, and there’s no certainty beyond. I every season expect that these lads who bought papers of me the last year will come back and deal with me again. First of all, these lads will come for a dozen, or a kipple of dozen, of papers; and so it goes on till perhaps they are able to sell half a gross a-day, and then from that they will, if the weather is fine, get up to ten dozen, or perhaps a gross, but seldom or never over that.
“In the very busiest and hottest time as is, I have, for about two or three weeks, made as many as thirty-six gross of papers in a week. We generally begins about the end of June or the beginning of July, and then for five or six weeks we goes on very busy; after that it dies out, and people gets tired of laying out their money.
“It’s almost impossible to get at any calculation of the quantity I make. You see, to-day I haven’t sold a gross, and yesterday I didn’t sell more than a gross; and the last three days I haven’t sold a single paper, it’s been so wet. But last week I sold more than five gross a-day,—it varies so. Oh yes, I sell more than a hundred gross during the season. You may say, that for a month I make about five gross a-day, and that—taking six days to the week, and thirty days to the month—makes a hundred and thirty gross: and then for another month I do about three gross a-day, and that, at the same calculation, makes seventy-eight gross, or altogether one hundred and ninety-eight gross, or 28,512 single papers, and that is as near as I can tell you.
“Sometimes our season lasts more than two months. You may reckon it from the latter end of June to the end of August, or if the weather is very hot, then we begins early in June, and runs it into September. The prime time is when the flies gets heavy and stings—that’s when the papers sells most.
“There’s others in the business besides myself; they lives up in St. Giles’s, and they sells ’em rather cheaper. At one time the shopkeepers used to make the papers. When they first commenced, they was sold at twopence and threepence and fourpence a-piece, but now they’re down to three a-penny in the streets, or a halfpenny for a single one. The boys when they’ve got back the money they paid me for their stock, will sell what papers they have left at anything they’ll fetch, because the papers gets dusty and spiles with the dust.
“I use the very best ‘Times’ paper for my ‘catch ’em alives.’ I gets them kept for me at stationers’ shops and liberaries, and such-like. I pays threepence a-pound, or twenty-eight shillings the hundred weight. That’s a long price, but you must have good paper if you want to make a good article. I could get paper at twopence a-pound, but then it’s only the cheap Sunday papers, and they’re too slight.
“The morning papers are the best, and will stand the pulling in opening the papers; for we always fold the destroyers with the sticky sides together when finished. The composition I use is very stiff; if the paper is bad, they tear when you force them open for use. Some in the trade cut up their newspapers into twelve for the full sheet, but I cut mine up into only eight.
“The process is this. First of all the paper is sized and coloured. We colour them by putting a little red lead into the size, because if the sticky side is not made apparent the people wont buy ’em, ’cause they might spile the furniture by putting the composition-side downwards. After sizing the papers, they are hung up to dry, and then the composition is laid on. This composition is a secret, and I’m obligated to keep it so, for of course all the boys who come here would be trying to make ’em, and not only would it injure me, but I’d warrant they’d injure theirselves as well, by setting the house on fire. You may say that my composition is made from a mixture of resinous substances. Everything in making it depends upon using the proper proportions. There’s some men who deal with me who know the substances to make the composition from, but because they haven’t got the exact proportions of the quantities, they can’t make it right.
“The great difficulty in making them is drying the papers after they are sized. Some days when it’s fine they’ll dry as fast as you can hang ’em up a’most, and other days they won’t dry at all—in damp weather ’specially. There is some makers who sizes and colours their papers in the winter, and then puts ’em to dry; and when the summer comes, then they has only to put on the composition.
“I’m a very quick hand in the trade (if you can call it one, for it only lasts three months at most, and is a very uncertain one, too; indeed, I don’t know what you can style our business—it ain’t a purfession and it ain’t a trade, I suppose it’s a calling): I’m a quick hand I say at spreading the composition, and I can, taking the day through, do about two gross an hour—that is, if the papers was sized ready for me; but as it is, having to size ’em first, I can’t do more than three gross a-day myself, but with my wife helping me we can do such a thing as five gross a-day.
“It’s most important that the size should dry. Now those papers (producing some covered with a dead red coating of the size preparation) have been done four days, and yet they’re not dry, although to you they appear so, but I can tell that they feel tough, and not crisp as they ought to. When the size is damp it makes them adhere to one another when I am laying the stuff on, and it sweats through and makes them heavy, and then they tears when I opens them.
“When I’m working, I first size the entire sheet. We put it on the table, and then we have a big brush and plaster it over. Then I gives it to my wife, and she hangs it up on a line. We can hang up a gross at a time here, and then the room is pretty full, and must seem strange to anybody coming in, though to us it’s ordinary enough.”
The man was about to exhibit to us his method of proceeding, when his attention was drawn off by a smell which the moving of the different pots had caused. “How strong this size smells, Charlotte!” he said to his wife.
“It’s the damp and heat of the room does it,” the wife replied; and then the narrative went on.
“Before putting on the composition I cut up the papers into slips as fast as possible, that don’t take long.”
“We can cut ’em in first style,” interrupted the wife.
“I can cut up four gross an hour,” said a boy, who was present.
“I don’t think you could, Johnny,” said the man. “Two gross is nearer the mark, to cut ’em evenly.”
“It’s only seventy sheets,” remonstrated the lad, “and that’s only a little more than one a minute.”
A pile of entire newspapers was here brought out, and all of them coloured red on one side, like the leaves of the books in which gold-leaf is kept.
Judging from the trial at cutting which followed, we should conclude that the lad was correct in his calculation.
“When we put on the composition,” continued the catch-’em-alive maker, “we has the cut slips piled up in a tall mound like, and then we have a big brush, and dips it in the pot of stuff and rubs it in; we folds each catcher up as we does it, like a thin slice of bread and butter, and put it down. As I said before, at merely putting on the composition I could do about two gross an hour.
“My price to the boys is twopence-halfpenny a dozen, or two-and-sixpence a gross, and out of that I don’t get more than ninepence profit, for the paper, the resin, and the firing for melting the size and composition, all takes off the profit.
“This season nearly all my customers have been boys. Last season I had a few men who dealt with me. The principal of those who buys of me is Irish. A boy will sometimes sell his papers for a halfpenny each, but the usual price is three a-penny. Many of the blacking-boys deal with me. If it’s a fine day it don’t suit them at boot-cleaning, and then they’ll run out with my papers; and so they have two trades to their backs—one for fine, and the other for wet weather.
“The first man as was the inventor of these fly-papers kept a barber’s shop in St. Andrew-street, Seven Dials, of the name of Greenwood or Greenfinch, I forget which. I expect he diskivered it by accident, using varnish and stuff, for stale varnish has nearly the same effect as our composition. He made ’em and sold ’em at first at threepence and fourpence a-piece. Then it got down to a penny. He sold the receipt to some other parties, and then it got out through their having to employ men to help ’em. I worked for a party as made ’em, and then I set to work making ’em for myself, and afterwards hawking them. They was a greater novelty then than they are now, and sold pretty well. Then men in the streets, who had nothing to do, used to ask me where I bought ’em, and then I used to give ’em my own address, and they’d come and find me.”
A numerous family of a large order of insects is but too well known, both in gardens and houses, under the general name of Bugs (Cimicidæ) most, if not all, of the species being distinguished by an exceedingly disagreeable smell, particularly when pressed or bruised.
The sucking instrument of these insects has been so admirably dissected and delineated by M. Savigny, in his “Theory of the Mouth of Six-legged (hexapod) Insects,”[5] that we cannot do better than follow so excellent a guide.
The sucker is contained in a sheath, and this sheath is composed of four pieces, which, according to Savigny’s theory, represent an under-lip much prolonged. The edges bend downwards, and form a canal receiving the four bristles, which he supposes to correspond with the two mandibles and the two lower jaws. It is probable that the two middle of these bristles act as piercers, while the other two, being curved at the extremity (though not at all times naturally so), assist in the process of suction.
The plant-bugs are all furnished with wings and membranous wing-cases, many of them being of considerable size, and decked in showy colours. These differ in all those points from their congener, the bed-bug (Cimex lectularius), which is small, without wings, and of a dull uniform brown. The name is of Welsh origin, being derived from the same root as bug-bear, and hence the passage in the Psalms, “thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night,”[6] is rendered in Matthew’s Bible, “thou shalt not nede to be afraide of any bugs by night.”
In earlier times this insect was looked upon with no little fear, no doubt because it was not so abundant as at present. “In the year 1503,” says Mouffet, “Dr. Penny was called in great haste to a little village called Mortlake, near the Thames, to visit two noblemen who were much frightened by the appearance of bug-bites, and were in fear of I know not what contagion; but when the matter was known, and the insects caught, he laughed them out of all fear.”[7] This fact, of course, disproves the statement of Southall, that bugs were not known in England before 1670.
Linnæus was of opinion, however, that the bug was not originally a native of Europe, but had been imported from America. Be this as it may, it seems to thrive but too well in our climate, though it multiplies less in Britain than in the warmer regions of the Continent, where it is also said to grow to a larger size, and to bite more keenly. This insect, it is said, is never seen in Ireland.[8]
“Commerce,” says a learned entomologist, “with many good things, has also introduced amongst us many great evils, of which noxious insects form no small part; and one of her worst presents was, doubtless, the disgusting animals called bugs. They seem, indeed,” he adds, “to have been productive of greater alarm at first than mischief,—at least, if we may judge from the change of name which took place upon their becoming common. Their original English name was Chinche, or Wall-louse; and the term bug, which is a Celtic word, signifying a ghost or goblin, was applied to them after Ray’s time, most probably because they were considered as ‘terrors by night.’ Hence our English word bug-bear. The word in this sense often occurs in Shakspeare, Winter’s Tale, act iii. sc. 2, 3; Henry VI. act v. sc. 2; Hamlet, act v. sc. 2. See Douce’s Illustrations of Shakspeare, i. 329.”
Even in our own island these obtrusive insects often banish sleep. “The night,” says Goldsmith, in his Animated Nature, “is usually the season when the wretched have rest from their labour; but this seems the only season when the bug issues from its retreats to make its depredations. By day it lurks, like a robber, in the most secret parts of the bed, takes the advantage of every chink and cranny to make a secure lodgment, and contrives its habitation with so much art that it is no easy matter to discover its retreat. It seems to avoid the light with great cunning, and even if candles be kept burning, this formidable insect will not issue from its hiding-place. But when darkness promises security, it then issues from every corner of the bed, drops from the tester, crawls from behind the arras, and travels with great assiduity to the unhappy patient, who vainly wishes for rest. It is generally vain to destroy one only, as there are hundreds more to revenge their companion’s fate; so that the person who thus is subject to be bitten (some individuals are exempt), remains the whole night like a sentinel upon duty, rather watching the approach of fresh invaders than inviting the pleasing approaches of sleep.”[9]
Mouffet assures us, that against these enemies of our rest in the night our merciful God hath furnished us with remedies, which we may fetch out of old and new writers, either to drive them away or kill them.[10] The following is given as the best poison for bugs, by Mr. Brande, of the Royal Institution:—Reduce an ounce of corrosive sublimate (perchloride of mercury) and one ounce of white arsenic to a fine powder; mix with it one ounce of muriate of ammonia in powder, two ounces each of oil of turpentine and yellow wax, and eight ounces of olive oil; put all these into a pipkin, placed in a pan of boiling water, and when the wax is melted, stir the whole, till cold, in a mortar.[11] A strong solution of corrosive sublimate, indeed, applied as a wash, is a most efficacious bug-poison.
Though most people dislike this insect, others have been known to regard it with protecting care. One gentleman would never suffer the bugs to be disturbed in his house, or his bedsteads removed, till, in the end, they swarmed to an incredible degree, crawling up even the walls of his drawing-room; and after his death millions were found in his bed and chamber furniture.[12]
In the Banian hospital, at Surat, the overseers are said frequently to hire beggars from the streets, at a stipulated sum, to pass the night among bugs and other vermin, on the express condition of suffering them to enjoy their feast without molestation.[13]
The bed-bug is not the only one of its congeners which preys upon man. St. Pierre mentions a bug found in the Mauritius, the bite of which is more venomous than the sting of a scorpion, being succeeded by a swelling as big as the egg of a pigeon, which continues for four or five days.[14] Ray tells us that his friend Willoughby had suffered severe temporary pain, in the same way, from a water-bug. (Notonecta glauca, Linn.)[15]
The winged insects of the order to which the bed-bug belongs often inflict very painful wounds, and it is even stated, upon good authority, that an insect of the order, commonly known in the West Indies by the name of the wheel-bug, can communicate an electric shock to the person whose flesh it touches. The late Major-General Davies, R.A. (well known as a most accurate observer of nature and an indefatigable collector of her treasures, as well as a most admirable painter of them), having taken up this animal and placed it upon his hand, assures us that it gave him, with its legs, a considerable shock, as if from an electric jar, which he felt as high as his shoulders; and then dropping the creature, he observed six marks upon his hand where the six feet had stood.
Bugs are very voracious, and seem to bite most furiously in the autumn, as if determined to feast themselves before they retire to their winter quarters.
There is another pernicious bed insect—the flea (Pulex irritans, Linn.), which, being without wings, some of our readers may suppose to be nearly allied to the bed-bug, though it does not belong even to the same order, but to a new one (Aphaniptera, Kirby), established on the principle that the wings are obsolescent or inconspicuous.
Fleas, it may be worth remarking, are not all of one species; those which infest animals and birds differing in many particulars from the common bed-flea (Pulex irritans). As many as twelve distinct sorts of fleas have been found in Britain alone.[16] The most annoying species, however, is, fortunately, not indigenous, being a native of the tropical latitudes, and variously named in the West Indies, chigoe, jigger, nigua, tungua, and pique (Pulex penetrans, Linn.). According to Stedman, “this is a kind of small sand-flea, which gets in between the skin and the flesh without being felt, and generally under the nails of the toes, where, while it feeds, it keeps growing till it becomes of the size of a pea, causing no further pain than a disagreeable itching. In process of time its operation appears in the form of a small bladder, in which are deposited thousands of eggs, or nits, and which, if it breaks, produce so many young chigoes, which in course of time create running ulcers, often of very dangerous consequence to the patient. So much so, indeed, that I knew a soldier, the soles of whose feet were obliged to be cut away before he could recover; and some men have lost their limbs by amputation, nay, even their lives, by having neglected, in time, to root out these abominable vermin.” Walton mentions that a Capuchin friar, in order to study the history of the chigoe, permitted a colony of them to establish themselves in his feet: but before he could accomplish his object his feet mortified and had to be amputated.[17] No wonder that Cardan calls the insect “a very shrewd plague.”[18]
Several extraordinary feats of strength have been recorded of fleas by various authors,[19] and we shall here give our own testimony to a similar fact. At the fair of Charlton, in Kent, 1830, we saw a man exhibit three fleas harnessed to a carriage in the form of an omnibus, at least fifty times their own bulk, which they pulled along with great ease; another pair drew a chariot. The exhibitor showed the whole first through a magnifying glass, and then to the naked eye, so that we were satisfied there was no deception. From the fleas being of large size they were evidently all females.[20]
It is rarely, however, that we meet with fleas in the way of amusement, unless we are of the singular humour of the old lady mentioned by Kirby and Spence, who had a liking to them; “because,” said she, “I think they are the prettiest little merry things in the world; I never saw a dull flea in all my life.”
When Ray and Willoughby were travelling, they found “at Venice and Augsburg fleas for sale, and at a small price too, decorated with steel or silver collars round their necks. When fleas are kept in a box amongst wool or cloth, in a warm place, and fed once a-day, they will live a long time. When these insects begin to suck they erect themselves almost perpendicularly, thrusting their sucker, which originates in the middle of the forehead, into the skin. The itching is not felt immediately, but a little afterwards. As soon as they are full of blood, they begin to void a portion of it; and thus, if permitted, they will continue for many hours sucking and voiding. After the first itching no uneasiness is subsequently felt. Willoughby had a flea that lived for three months, sucking in this manner the blood of his hand; it was at length killed by the cold of winter.”[21]
According to Mouffet’s account of the sucker of the flea, “the point of his nib is somewhat hard, that he may make it enter the better; and it must necessarily be hollow, that he may suck out the blood and carry it in.”[22] Modern authors, particularly Straus and Kirby, show that Rösel was mistaken in supposing this sucker to consist of two pieces, as it is really made up of seven. First, there is a pair of triangular instruments, somewhat resembling the beak of a bird, inserted on each side of the mouth, under the parts which are generally regarded as the antennæ. Next, a pair of long sharp piercers (scalpella, Kirby), which emerge from the head below the preceding instruments; whilst a pair of feelers (palpi), consisting of four joints, is attached to these near their base. In fine, there is a long, slender tongue, like a bristle, in the middle of these several pieces.
Mouffet says, “the lesser, leaner, and younger the fleas are, the sharper they bite,—the fat ones being more inclined to tickle and play. They molest men that are sleeping,” he adds, “and trouble wounded and sick persons, from whom they escape by skipping; for as soon as they find they are arraigned to die, and feel the finger coming, on a sudden they are gone, and leap here and there, and so escape the danger; but so soon as day breaks they forsake the bed. They then creep into the rough blankets, or hide themselves in rushes and dust, lying in ambush for pigeons, hens, and other birds; also for men and dogs, moles and mice, and vex such as pass by. Our hunters report that foxes are full of them, and they tell a pretty story how they get quit of them. The fox, say they, gathers some handfuls of wool from thorns and briers, and wrapping it up, holds it fast in his mouth, then he goes by degrees into a cold river, and dips himself down by little and little; when he finds that all the fleas are crept so high as his head for fear of drowning, and ultimately for shelter crept into the wool, he barks and spits out the wool, full of fleas, and thus very froliquely being delivered from their molestations, he swims to land.”[23]
This is a little more doubtful even than the story told of Christina, queen of Sweden, who is reported to have fired at the fleas that troubled her with a piece of artillery, still exhibited in the Royal Arsenal at Stockholm.[24] Nor are fleas confined to the old continent, for Lewis and Clarke found them exceedingly harassing on the banks of the Missouri, where it is said the native Indians are sometimes compelled to shift their quarters, to escape their annoyance. They are not acquainted, it would therefore seem, with the device of the shepherds in Hungary, who grease their clothes with hog’s-lard to deter the fleas;[25] nor with the old English preventive: