An Active Insect.

Manawatu Herald, 7 February 1895, Page 3

An Active Insect.

—^-#— — Everything is a matter of propois tion, ana Mark Twain, in one of his books thus shows it. When you come to guage a thing's speed by its < *Bize> where's your bird, and your man, and your railroad, alongside of a flea ? The fastest man can't run much more than about ten miles in an boox-r-not much over ten thou-sand-times his own length. But all thetbooks says, any common ordinary third-class flea can jump a hundred and fifty times his own length ; yes, and he can make five jumps a second, too — seven hundred and fifty times his own length in one little second ; for he don't fool away any time stopping and starting— he does them both at the same time ; you'll see if you try to put your finger on him. Now, that's a common ordi dinary third-class flea's gait; but you take an Eyetalian first-class, that* s been the pet of the nobility all ftto We, and hasn't ever knowed what want or sickness or exposure wag, and he can jump more than three hundred times his own length, and keep it up all day, five such iumps every second — which iB fifteen Kindred times his own length. Well, gnppose a man could go fifteen hundred times his own length in a second — say, a mile and a half. Its ninety miles a minute ; its considerable more than five hundred miles an hour. Where's your man now? Yes, and your bird, and your railroad, and your baloon ? Laws ! they don't amount to shucks 'longside of a flea. A flea is just a comet b'iled down small.