FLEAS, eh? Dirty, irritating parasites that should all be destroyed?

Don't say that in Bob George's earshot, as he's devoted a lifetime to studying these much-maligned creatures and is proud to be a Siphonapteraeologist.

"I think there are only two or three of us in the country," says Bob, cheerfully, as we make our way into the sitting room of the Bournemouth home he shares with his son, which doubles up as the nerve-centre of his flea empire.

Books, papers and intriguing little parcels lie all over a series of low tables, along with a handsome brass microscope.

The books are for identification, many of the papers he has written himself, (including the British Flea Atlas Second Edition) and the parcels contain specimens of fleas posted to him by the inquiring-of-mind.

"I get two or three a week," he says.

Dead or alive?

"Both," he chuckles. He holds up a plastic bag containing moss and twigs.

"That's a blue tit's nest someone's sent to me. It'll take an hour's work" he says, with evident relish.

"Sometimes in a bag you can see them loose."

The average blue tit's nest may harbour anything from 20 to 3,000 fleas.

But this is baby stuff compared to the tube of hedgehog fleas that were dispatched to him from an animal rescue centre in Guernsey.

"The tube was full up with all this vegetable debris and dust and when I sorted it all out, I discovered there were 7,160 on that hedgehog.

"The lady who took them off him always bathes her hedgehogs and she said that when she bathed this one, the water ran pink with the blood from all the bites."

It didn't put Bob off. Or the rescue lady. He later persuaded her to collect the fleas from one entire year's intake of Tiggywinkles.

"Over that year she cared for 365 hedgehogs and sent me approximately 31,0000 fleas.

"I identified the whole lot and all but 10 were hedgehog fleas."

It's a testament to Bob that at 86, he still finds this fact a) remarkable and b) worth recording, but he has a touching regard for his subject.

It all began as a boy in his native Gloucester, trapping mice.

He caught 35, and after they died, he collected 15 fleas from one and on a whim packed them off to the Natural History Museum.

A keen collector of beetles, he was delighted to receive a reply that told him his flea sample contained one that came from the Black Sea area.

"Apparently that was only the eighth time one had been collected in Britain so the Museum's flea man wrote back to me and said: You don't want to worry about beetles, come and join we flea people'."

This was in 1950 and it was only a matter of time before the world-renowned naturalist the Hon Miriam Rothschild, colloquially know as the Queen of the Fleas for her research into the subject, got to hear of him.

Unable to resist her enthusiasm - Miriam's "beautiful" flea collection is lodged with the British Museum - Bob gave himself up to the lure of the parasitic jumping insect.

And after an hour in his gracious company you can see why.

Who could resist a creature known as Megabothris rectangulus (the vole flea) once they'd heard of it?

And then there is Bob himself.

"I can identify a thousand fleas in an evening," he says, proudly.

"Some people collect them for fun, you see."

He's looking forward to the publication of the second edition of his British Flea Atlas, which will reveal just what kind of fleas have been found within each county.

But what's the point of fleas? Couldn't we just do without them?

"Fleas have got just as much right as we have or an elephant has to exist," he says.

"Animals, even fleas, aren't there for our purpose. They have their own role in the world."

  • Bob George will identify fleas sent to him at 54 Richmond Park Avenue, Bournemouth.