companions, has a history known with precision to few, and its relations are not yet well made out; in other words, the number of species of fleas is not known, and it is doubtful whether each species is parasitic on one or more animals. Moreover, so anomalous is the structure of the flea, that its proper place in the scale of insects is disputed, some authors contending that it belongs to one Order and some to another. Here, then, is work for observation, and one that would confer no mean honour upon the elucidator.

Fleas love the dark, and their dislike to light, combined with their great muscular power, were the basis of the exhibitions of the "Industrious Fleas," at one time popular in London and other places. I once heard a story which, I believe, has never been in print, and I may here tell it. The sovereign of one of the German states commanded the attendance at court of one of these exhibitions, and the performance of the fleas, some harnessed like horses, and others dressed to represent celebrated human characters, commenced. But soon the exhibitor became perturbed, looked hither and thither, searched through his repository, and stopped the performance, with an apology that one of his chief performers, his Napoleon, had escaped, although he was safe since the acting began. "Where can he be gone?" said the King. The exhibitor looked uneasy, but spoke not. "Tell me," said his Majesty, interpreting his increasing confusion, "what you suspect." "If I may be so bold, your Majesty, I believe he has taken refuge with the Princess H-." "Then," said the King, "search shall be made;" and the Princess retired. After awhile she appeared with a captive,

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who was immediately put upon the stage. But, oh, horror!

the exhibitor exclaimed,

wild one!"

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He is not my Napoleon, he is a

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In old houses, or in houses where the furniture is old, may often be seen the small brown beetle called Anobium tesselatum, or more generally the death-watch,"-a loiterer among the things of the past, a reminiscence of the medieval times. Then his tick appalled many a stout heart, and even yet, to superstitious minds, is a signal from the world of spirits. But, although it is now well enough understood that this noise is produced by the male as a signal to the female, the subject, curious in itself and its associations, is worth attention and investigation.

Everywhere, "up stairs, down stairs and in my lady's chamber," is the fly. For cool, easy, impertinent familiarity, commend me to the fly. Drive him away from the viands upon which you are engaged, the enjoyment of which he perseveringly disputes with you on your plate, or from your glass, where he sits rubbing his feet (I had almost said his hands), in the excess of his epicurism, and qualifying himself, by gentle sips of your wine, to have an opinion of its quality; flap him with your handkerchief, upsetting your glass and your temper, and driving him on to the fruit at the same time, where, looking through his Argus-eyes, he is making game of you; follow him up, and, if he does not settle on your nose, and you are not too much flurried, observe how he rises into the air boldly and without preparation; put a man to make a leap as high as himself, and he must stoop for the spring to do it; even a bird, although it has wings, must do the same thing; but Herr Fly does nothing of the kind; he only

opens his two wings, and is gone. How? That is something to find out. There have also been many theories and disputes about the means by which a fly walks upon a smooth surface, such as glass, in a vertical position, or runs with his back downwards,-as, for instance, on the ceiling of a room, and I do not know that the question can yet be considered as determined. Thus, here is another subject for investigation.

Ah, but

Then who does not know the clothes-moth? which of these on the window is it? Those! oh, they are not all destructive creatures. This pretty little fellow, with the white head and neck,* comes from a caterpillar that lives in holes and corners, and eats any bits of refuse, and does no harm to any one. This brown fellow was once a caterpillar

with a moveable case, who nourished himself in some dark closet, where he made a living out of old clothes, and a house which he carried about with him. He might be styled the Jew of moths, for he is always to be found, throughout all the stages of his existence, among the "Old Clo',"-a cry he would doubtless utter if he could. Unlike many a Christian, he has provided well for his children, having taken care they shall have every chance of being well brought up, by having the eggs deposited in a place of plenty. This is the true "clothes-moth." There is the other sleek yellow-plush gentleman, who sees us looking and is sidling away; he probably spent his time, from youth to maturity, if not under the ermine, yet in as near an approach to it as circumstances

*Endrosis fenestrella.

+ Tinea pellionella.

Tinea biselliella.

would permit he has a dear liking for furs of all sorts, and if he has no regard for the appearance of the skins of other animals, neither has he for his own; for, unlike his congener above mentioned, he makes no covering for his body until he has done eating, when he forms a rude hut in which to assume his robes of state: when he comes out, no one would believe how much dirty work was necessary to procure this finery. In the world there are many parallels.

Everybody has heard of a haunted house: nearly every house in and about London is haunted. Let the doubters, if they have the courage, go stealthily down to the kitchen at midnight, armed with a light and whatever other weapon they like, and they will see that beings, of which Tam o'Shanter never dreamed, whose presence at daylight was only a myth, have here "a local habitation and a name.” Scared from their nocturnal revels, they run and scamper in all directions, until, in a short time, the stage is clear, and, as in some legends of diablerie, nothing remains but a most peculiar odour. These were no spirits, had nothing even of the fairy about them, but were veritable cockroaches, or blackbeetles, as they are more commonly but erroneously termed, for they are not beetles at all. They have prodigious powers of increase, and are a corresponding nuisance. Kill as many as you will, except perhaps by poison, and you cannot extirpate them" the cry is still they come." One of the best ways to be rid of them is to keep a hedgehog, to which creature they are a favourite food, and his nocturnal habits make him awake to theirs. I have known cats to eat them (the cockroaches, not the hedgehogs), but they do not thrive upon them. The cockroach belongs to the Order Orthoptera,

the insects in which have only a so-called incomplete metamorphosis, and through all the stages of their existence are active and feed. And how they do eat! nothing comes amiss to them; but one article of their food would not have been suspected. The following note thereon was communicated by Mr. Newman to the Entomological Society, at the Meeting in February, 1855:—“There is nothing new under the sun' so says the proverb. I believed, until a few days back, that I possessed the knowledge of a fact in the dietary economy of the cockroach of which entomologists were not cognizant,.but I find myself forestalled; the fact is 'as old as the hills it is that the cockroach seeks with diligence, and devours with great gusto, the common bed bug. I will not mention names, but I am so confident of the veracity of the narrator that I willingly take the entire responsibility. Poverty makes one acquainted with strange bedfellows,' and my informant bears willing testimony to the truth of the adage: he had not been prosperous, and had sought shelter in a London boarding-house: every night he saw cockroaches ascending his bed-curtains; every morning he complained to his very respectable landlady, and invariably received the comforting assurance that there was not a black beetle' in the house still he pursued his nocturnal investigations, and he not only saw cockroaches running along the tester of the bed, but, to his great astonishment, he positively observed one of them seize a bug, and he therefore concluded, and not without some show of reason, that the cockroaches ascended the curtains with this especial object, and that the minor and more odoriferous insect is a favourite food of the major one. The following extract from Webster's 'Narrative of Foster's

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: