As illustrative of the strength of the Flea, the following facts may also be given: We read in a note to Purchas’s Pilgrims that “one Marke Scaliot, in London, made a lock and key and chain of forty-three links, all which a Flea did draw, and weighed but a grain and a half.”[1045] Mouffet, who also records this fact, says he had heard of another Flea that was harnessed to a golden chariot, which it drew with the greatest ease.[1046] Bingley tells us that Mr. Boverick, an ingenious watchmaker in the Strand, exhibited some years ago a little ivory chaise with four wheels, and all its proper apparatus, and the figure of a man sitting on the box, all of which were drawn by a single Flea. The same mechanic afterward constructed a minute landau, which opened and shut by springs, with the figures of six horses harnessed to it, and of a coachman on the box, a dog between his legs, four persons inside, two footmen behind it, and a postillion riding on one of the fore horses, which were all easily dragged along by a single Flea. He likewise had a chain of brass, about two inches long, containing two hundred links, with a hook at one end and a padlock and key at the other, which a Flea drew nimbly along.[1047] At a fair of Charlton, in Kent, 1830, a man exhibited three Fleas harnessed to a carriage in form of an omnibus, at least fifty times their own bulk, which they pulled along with great ease; another pair drew a chariot, and a single Flea a brass cannon. The exhibitor showed the whole first through a magnifying glass, and then to the naked eye; so that all were satisfied there was no deception.[1048] Latrielle also mentions a Flea of a moderate size, which dragged a silver cannon, mounted on wheels, that was twenty-four times its own weight, and which being charged with gunpowder was fired off without the Flea appearing in the least alarmed.[1049] It is recorded in Purchas’s Pilgrims that an Egyptian artisan received a garment of cloth of gold for binding a Flea in a chain.[1050] The Flea is twice mentioned in the Bible, and in both cases David, in speaking to Saul, applies it to himself as a term of humility.[1051] A Prussian poet, quoted by Jaeger,[1052] gives us the song of a young Flea who had emigrated to this country from Prussia, and thus expresses his dissatisfaction to his sweetheart: Kennst de nunmehr das Land, we Dorngestripp und Disteln blüh’n, Im frost’gen Wald nur eckelhafte Tannenzapfen glüh’n, Der Schierling tief, und hoch der Sumach steht, Ein rauher Wind vom schwarzen Himmel weht; Kennst du es wohl? O lass uns eilig zieh’n, Und schnell zurück in unsre Hiemath flieh’n!