The trained flea is one of nature's marvels. Everyone says so. A Bobby
Burns might well write a poem on this "wee, timorous, cowerin' beastie,"
except that the flea is not, strictly speaking, timorous or cowering. A
flea, when it is in good health and spirits, will not cower worth a
cent. It has ten times the bravery of a lion--in fact, one single little
flea, alone and unaided, will step right up and attack the noisiest
lion, and never brag about it. A lion is a rank coward in comparison
with a flea, for a lion will not attack anything that it has not a good
chance of killing, while the humble but daring flea will boldly attack
animals it cannot kill, and that it knows it cannot kill. David had at
least a chance to kill Goliath, but what chance has a flea to kill a
camel? None at all unless the camel commits suicide. And dogs! A flea
will attack the most ferocious dog and think nothing of it at all. I
have seen it myself. That is true bravery. And not only that--not only
will one flea attack a dog--but hundreds of fleas will attack the same
dog at the same time. I have seen that myself, too. And that multiplies
the bravery of the flea just that much. One flea attacking a dog is
brave; one hundred fleas attacking the same dog are therefore one
hundred times as brave. We really had to give the dog away, he was
carrying so much bravery around with him all the time.
Think of educating an animal with a brain about the size of the point of
a fine needle! And that was what Professor Jocolino had done. The flea
is really one of nature's wonders, like Niagara Falls, and Jojo the
dog-faced man, and the Ca�on of the Colorado. Pull? For its size the
educated flea can pull ten times as much as the strongest horse. Jump?
For its size the flea can jump forty times as far as the most agile
jack-rabbit. Its hide is tougher than the hide of a rhinoceros, too.
Imagine a rhinoceros standing in Madison Square, in the City of New
York, and suppose you have crept up to it, and are going to pat it, and
your hand is within one foot of the rhinoceros. And before you can bring
your hand to touch the beast suppose it makes a leap, and goes darting
through the air so rapidly that you can't see it go, and that before
your hand has fallen to where the rhinoceros was, the rhinoceros has
alighted gently on top of the City Hall at Philadelphia. That will give
you some idea of the magnificent qualities of the flea. If we only knew
more of these ordinary facts about things we would love things more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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