Notes on Some Bird Fleas, with the Description of a New Species of Ceratophyllus, and a Key to the Bird Fleas Known from Canada (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae)

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Abstract
All known bird fleas are believed to have been derived from species that originally infested mammals. Circumstances evidently have occurred whereby representatives of species that were ordinarily the parasites of mammals became associated with buds, and were successful in establishing themselves on these hosts. These circumstances must have included some provision for isolation whereby the newly transferred colonies of fleas were not given the opportunity of becoming reassociated with the original hosts, and also were not contaminated by subsequent introductions of others of their species. Thus they were able to become adapted to an existence on the bodies and in the nests of avian hosts. The adaptations were physical as well as physiological, many bird fleas exhibiting morphological characteristics which, though not yet properly understood, apparently bear some relationship to their specialized environment.

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