Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1895 — ODDS AND ENDS. [ARTICLE]

ODDS AND ENDS.

A FLY'S egg will hatch in twelve hours. Fleas always leave a dead or dying person. A PEt flea has been known to live six years. There are more than 400,000 insects known to entomologists. The army worm has cost this coun try more than the revolutionary war. Farmers of the United States lose 8100,000,000 annually by the ravages of insects. SOUTH American ants have been known to construct a tunnel three miles long. If a man could jump as far in proportion to his size as a flea, he could leap 70 miles. Female spiders are larger and m >ro ferocious than males, and generally devour their husbands. If human dwellings were built on the same proportion as the ant hills of Africa, private residences would be a mile high. Two sexton beetles will bury a mole in an hour, a feat equal to ’ two men burying a whale in the same length of time. A mosquito injects poison into the wound he makes in order that the blood may become fluid enough to flow readily. This is what causes the pain. The utility of the mosquito is beyond question, ft is born in the swamps, and feeds uoon animal an 1 vegetable matter which, if allowed to decompose, would fill the air with poisonous gases.