Fig. 18.—Louse (Pediculus capitis) magnified.
The Head Louse (Pediculus capitis, [Fig. 18]) is an insect with a flat body, slightly transparent, and of greyish colour, spotted with black on the spiracles, soft in the middle, and rather hard at the sides. The head, which is oval, is furnished with two thread-like antennæ, composed of five joints, which are constantly in motion while the creature is walking; it is also furnished with two simple, round, black eyes; and lastly, with a mouth. In the front of the head is a short, conical, fleshy nipple. This nipple contains a sucker, or rostrum, which the animal can put out when it likes, and which, when extended, represents a tubular body, terminating in six little pointed hooks, bent back, and serving to retain the instrument in the skin. This organ is surmounted by four fine hairs, fixed to one another, and seated in its interior. It is by means of this complicated apparatus that the louse pricks and sucks the skin of the head. The thorax is nearly square, and divided into three parts by deep incisions. The abdomen, strongly lobed at the sides, is composed of eight rings, and is provided with sixteen spiracles. The limbs consist of a trochanter, a thigh, a shank, and a tarsus of a single joint, and are very thick. A strong nail, which folds back on an indented projection, thus forming a pincer, terminates the tarsus. It is with this pincer that the louse fastens itself to the hair.
Lice are oviparous. Their eggs, which remain sticking to the hair, are long and white, and are commonly called "nits." The young are hatched in the course of five or six days; and in eighteen days are able to reproduce their kind. Leuwenhoek calculated that in two months two female lice could produce ten thousand! Other naturalists have asserted that the second generation of a single individual can amount to two thousand five hundred, and the third, to a hundred and twenty-five thousand! Happily for the victims of these disgusting parasites, their reproduction is not generally to this prodigious extent.
Many means are employed to kill lice. Lotions of the smaller centaury or of stavesacre, and pomatum mixed with mercurial ointment, are very efficacious. But the surest and easiest remedy is to put plenty of oil on the head. The oil kills the lice by obstructing their tracheæ, and thus stopping respiration.
There are other kinds of lice, but we will only mention the louse which infests beggars and people of unclean habits, Pediculus humanus corporis, producing the complaint called phthiriasis. In the victims of this disease these parasites increase with fearful rapidity. This dreadful disorder is often mentioned by the ancients. King Antiochus, the philosopher Pherecydes of Scyros, the contemporary and friend of Thales, the dictator Sylla, Agrippa, and Valerius Maximus, are said to have been attacked by phthiriasis, and even to have died of it. Amatus Lusitanus, a Portuguese doctor of the sixteenth century, relates that lice increased so quickly and to such an extent on a rich nobleman attacked with phthiriasis, that the whole duty of two of his servants consisted in carrying away, and throwing into the sea, whole basketfuls of the vermin, which were continually escaping from the person of their noble master.
Little is known at the present day of the details of this complaint, though it is observed frequently enough in some parts of the south of Europe, where the dirty and miserable inhabitants are a prey to poverty and uncleanliness—two misfortunes which often go together. In Gallicia, in Poland, in the Asturias, and in Spain, we may find many victims of phthiriasis.
Lice increase with such rapidity on persons thus attacked, that it is common to attribute their appearance to spontaneous generation alone. But the prodigious rapidity of reproduction in these insects sufficiently explains their increase, especially when it is admitted that it is possible for the female louse to reproduce young without the agency of the male.
The Thysanura or "Skip Tail" tribe are small insects, which are better known on account of the beauty of their microscopic body scales than for any interesting habits or instincts. They do not undergo metamorphosis.
The Fish Scale or Lepisma saccharina, and the Skip Tail or Podura plumbea belong to the Thysanura.