Fleas of the Golden West

A siphonapterist (flea expert) is among the most fortunate of all scientists: his prey is both abundant and varied. Recently the Iowa State College Press published a handsome book (Fleas of Western North America, by Dr. Clarence Andresen Hubbard, former professor of Pacific University) which proves that western U.S. siphonapterists are the most fortunate of all. With 66 genera and 230 species and subspecies of fleas, the U.S. West, says Dr. Hubbard, "is indeed a flea collector's paradise."

One of the things about fleas which siphonapterists admire is their perfect adaptation to their way of life. They have a high, thin chassis, the better to move among hairs. They crawl when undisturbed, but their hindmost legs are always in position for a life-saving jump. To fill their hungry stomachs they have powerful, two-chambered blood pumps. Their biting apparatus can pierce with ease the hide of a grizzly bear.

Every land-living, warm-blooded animal (including mice, moles, birds, skunks, Idaho pigmy rabbits, mountain beavers, coyotes and humans) may play host to interesting fleas. Some kinds of fleas will thrive on the blood of a variety of hosts; others are stubborn specialists.

Find the Host. When a siphonapterist, like the King of Israel, "is come out to seek a flea,"-he does not look for fleas themselves. "Only on rare occasions," says Dr. Hubbard, "does a collector actually find wild fleas in any numbers roaming around on the ground." The best hunting places are the hosts, which should be shot or captured alive in box traps. As soon as the host's body cools, the fleas move on to a new, warm-blooded host. Other collecting grounds are nests and burrows. "An old, well-established mouse nest," says Dr. Hubbard, "may often net the collector 100 fleas."

Siphonapterists admire fleas for their own sakes, but point out that they are important to human beings because of the diseases they carry./- Bubonic plague, the most dangerous flea-borne disease, has dug itself in among the wild rodents of the West. Fleas also carry tularemia (rabbit fever, named for Tulare County, Calif:) as well as typhus. They also carry tapeworms.

In addition to its native fleas, the western U.S. has many aliens. Most common is the European flea (Pulex irritans), which prefers a human host. Dr. Hubbard recommends lumber camps, flophouses and seashore resorts as the best bets for collectors. He notes that Pulex irritans prefers young, tender-skinned blondes or red-heads--as well as hogs. "In farming communities," he says, "this flea is found to be a constant parasite on hogs and dogs, as well as the farmers."

Tell the Museum. Another U.S. invader and efficient carrier of plague is the oriental rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis), which is well established in California. Not yet established is Central America's Tunga penetrans, a flea which digs into the skin and swells up with eggs. But Dr. Hubbard tells of a man in New Orleans who sat on a bale of sisal from. Yucatan and was infested with Tunga penetrans at the point of contact.

The Einstein of siphonapterology was the Hon. Nathaniel Charles Rothschild, second son of the first Baron Rothschild of Tring. He was charmed by fleas while still a student at Cambridge, and pursued them the rest of his life. Says Dr. Hubbard: "The Tring Museum ... at Tring, Hertfordshire, has become the flea center of the world." Flea lovers from all over report their discoveries and send offerings (fleas) to Tring.

Siphonapterology is not a finished science; there is still much to be accomplished. In the great U.S. West, there are still many flea species which have never been collected--for scientific purposes.

-I Samuel 26:20.

*-I Samuel 26:20. /- Fleas also have their cultural aspects. For centuries, they have been used as entertainers in flea circuses. In Goethe's Faust, Mephistopheles sings of "a king, A lovely queen had he--But dearer far than queen or son. He loved a big black flea. . . ." Upon this item Russian Composer Modest Petrovich Moussorgsky based his Song of the Flea.

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