BUG. 
16:2 
treatise on this animal, that it was scarcely known 
in England before the year 1670, when it was im- 
ported among the timber used in rebuilding the 
city of London after the great fire of 1666. That 
it was however known much earlier is hardl}'^ to 
be doubted, though probably far less common 
than at present; since Mouffet informs us that 
Dr. Penny, one of the early compilers of that 
History of Insects, relates his having been sent 
for in great haste to Mortlake in Surry to visit 
two noble ladies who imagined themselves seized 
with the usual symptoms of the plague; but on 
Penny’s demonstrating to them the true cause of 
their complaint, viz. having been bitten by these 
insects, and even detecting them in their pre- 
sence, the whole affair was turned into a jest. 
This was in the year 1583 . 
To give a particular description of an animal 
so well known would be superfluous: it may be 
sufficient to observe, that it is of an oval shape, 
about the sixth of an inch in length, of a very 
compressed or flat form, and of a reddish brown 
colour. It is easily destroyed by pressure, being 
of a very tender nature, and when bruiseff diffuses 
a highly unpleasant smell. In the beginning of 
summer it deposits its eggs, which are very small, 
white, and of an oval shape, each standing on a 
kind of short pedicle or footstalk, in the cavities 
of walls or wood-work, and from these are hatched, 
in the course of a few weeks the young, which 
* Three weeks, according to Southall. 
