A PLAGUE OF FLEAS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19835, 26 June 1934, Page 14

A PLAGUE OF FLEAS

DISCOMFORT AND ANNOYANCE AMUSING COMMENT ON OFFICIAL REPORT Miss E. Plank, entomologist of the Dominion Museum staff, has officially reported as follows: “At the present time throughout New Zealand there appears to be what may be termed an epidemic of fleas which, although not likely to cause any outbreak of disease occasion much discomfort and annoyance.” The report appears in the journal of the Department >t Agriculture. Probably a Royal Commission could obtain (on oath) much interesting evidence, and, perhaps, statistical information on Pulex irritans in New Zealand—its fecundity, distribution, habits. Fleas, it is common knowledge, are kindly impartial in the selection of their canine hosts, but it does not follow that for all that he has been charged with the Alsatian carries more fleas to the square inch than any other dog. Cats, too, if at all slack in their toilets, may bring fleas into the best kept of bedrooms, for their fondness for the eiderdown quilt, after being on strenuous night duty, naturally makes them seek out quiet, soft, and reposeful positions; and, besides, cats, like dogs, keep all sorts >f feline company but they have more liberty and are less in danger of motor-cars than dogs. Still it is a question for experts to decide whether fleas favour cats more than dogs. When the entomologist above quoted reported on the epidemic of fleas she expressed the opinion that they are “not likely to cause any outbreak of disease.” This reassuring statement is important, because fleas (whether of the species in question is for the entomologists to say) have an evil reputation in the East as active agents in the distribution of bubonic piague, about which there is nothing at ail funny ,to those who have seen an outbreak among Asiatics. Entertainment? Observant persons, not necessarily equipped with entomological knowledge, have remarked on the extraordinary mobility of fleas. One flea, it seems, can travel from end to end of a dress circle in under half an hour. It has been avouched (from certain movements among individual members cf an audience) that a flea will be most busy during tense moments in a play. Its presence may be denoted by a swift clasp of the left forearm by the right hand of one individual, followed a minute or so later by a swift movement by his neighbour of the left hand to the left ankle. A little later on perhaps the third or fourth person away, but in the same row, extra pressure is being applied by the shoulders of another individual to the back of the seat. And so the progress of a single flea, it is said, can be observed even by unscientific persons—what time business of absorbing interest is going cn on the stage or platform. Fleas, of course, have made for themselves a place among famous performers for public entertainment, vieing with trick cyclists, seals and jugglers for popular favour; but these fleas are usually subject to a rigid discipline of trainers who stand no more nonsense with their insect artists than a circus ringmaster will from a lady rider or a too-familiar clown. From performing fleas, then, it. seems, uo outbreak of disease may be expected, although if such "turned “Bolshie” and mutinied they might "occasion muon discomfort and annoyance.” Is “Control” Effective? However, with the museum entomologist’s warning of the epidemic cf fleas there is associated a description of control methods which the journal publishes in detail, and it may be worth while for sufferers from fleas in dwellings to study and apply these measures. All the fleas may not be destroyed—in fact “control” is the word used to particularise what to dp. But a rigorous and unrelaxing control such as is outlined may have the effect of sending the fleas from one house to another, where a more kindly environment may await them, unless other fleas have already become well established there. In any case the natural celerity of the flea (if hot overfed) will enable it to reach the house next door but one, so that resort to control is practically certain to be rewarded with success in coping with this nation-wide epidemic to which Miss Plank has directed public attention.