Originally published in Pearson's Weekly (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.) vol.1 #33 (07 Mar 1891).
The mite makes 500 steps in a second, or 30,000 in a minute. Allowing the horse to move at an equal ratio, he would perform 1,022 miles an hour. The journey from London to Birmingham would occupy but six minutes and a fraction.
There is another insect which may in some measure rival the mite in the celerity of its motion, and is itself unrivalled in strength in proportion to its size. Although it is generally disliked, and has not a very fair reputation, yet to the eye of the naturalist it is a rather pleasing and interesting object. Its form, as examined by the microscope, is extremely elegant, and has an appearance as if clad in a coat of mail. It has a small head, with large eyes, a clean and bright body, beset at each segment with numerous sharp and shining bristles.
All its motions indicate agility and sprightliness, and its muscular power is so extraordinary as justly to excite our astonishment; indeed, we know no other animal whose strength can be compared with (its name must come out at last) that of a common flea, for, on a moderate computation, it can leap to a distance at least 200 times the length of its own body. A flea will drag after it a chain 100 times heavier than itself, and will eat ten times its own weight of provisions in a day.
Mr. Boverich, an ingenious watchmaker, who years ago lived in the Strand, London, exhibited to the public a little ivory chaise with four wheels, ever proper appliance, and a man sifting on the box, all of which were drawn by a single flea. He made a small landau, which opened and shut by springs, with six horses harnessed to it, a coachman sitting on the box, and a dog between his legs, four persons in the carriage, two footmen behind it, and a postillion riding on one of the fore-horses, which was also easily drawn along by a flea. He likewise had a chain of brass about two inches long, containing 200 links, with a hook at one end, and a padlock and key at the other, which the flea drew along very nimbly.