No flea for his life dare abide to be known.
(Tusser.)
The author of ‘A Thousand Notable Things’ suggests the following plan, but, so far, I have not met anyone who has tried it: ‘If you mark where your right foot doth stand at the first time that you do hear the cuckow, and then grave or take up the earth under the same; wheresoever the same is sprinkled about, there will no fleas breed. I know it hath proved true.’
Plastering a floor with cow-dung is a common practice in South Africa, and seems to be an efficacious means of keeping down fleas. Dr. R. J. Drummond tells me that all natives of India and Ceylon spread an emulsion of cow-dung in hot-water over the floors and the walls of their dwellings to keep out fleas. This has been done from immemorial times, and is effective. The efficacy of the emulsion in keeping fleas away has been doubted, and so I am glad to quote a few lines from a kind letter sent me by Dr. P. A. Nightingale of Victoria, Southern Rhodesia, which put the matter in a happy light:—
I think the correct facts are these: the floors of certain houses, huts, &c., throughout the South African veld are made of ant-heap earth, moistened and beaten hard and flat with sticks. This floor is then smeared at regular intervals—say, every ten days—with fresh cow-dung, when the room becomes fresh and sweet (!) and free from insects.
However, before the smearing can be done it is necessary to turn all the furniture out of the room and to sweep it thoroughly; after the smearing, the doors and windows are left open for drying purposes.
Hence, I think that the absence of fleas in such quarters is really due to general cleanliness, sunlight, and fresh air, and not to any special virtue in the cow-dung.
I am, however, sure that the smearing of the floor at frequent intervals does keep many pests down by filling up, and temporarily sealing, the numerous cracks in the floor where fleas, &c., reside and breed in vast numbers.
Huts—especially unused ones—not smeared for many weeks contain (approximately) several thousands of fleas, white ants, centipedes, and scorpions to the square inch, when the only treatment is to cleanse the walls and floor with cyanide solution, or burn the whole place down.
