We Never Speak Their Names. 99 



say I do not know how truly that in the Orient there 

 is a winged species. But the common creeping kind 

 manage to get about plenty fast enough. It was very 

 likely a plant-feeder in the early days, but on what plant 

 is unknown. Probably it is out of print by now. Some 

 have fancied that the wild bugs live on the cottonwood 

 tree and the Georgia pine and are brought into the house 

 by the use of these woods in carpentry. But it is the 

 immature young of quite another insect that at one stage 

 resembles our flat mahogany friends, which are old-world 

 importations. The Indians never knew them until 

 European civilization, with its train of attendant benefits, 

 reached these Western 

 shores. 



A man once called up 

 Dr. Abernethy in t h e 

 m i d d 1 e of the night. 

 " Doctor," he cried, 

 "Hodges has swal- 

 lowed a mouse. What 

 shall he do?" 



" Tell him to swallow 

 a cat! " snapped the phy- 

 sician, and went back to 

 bed. 



Something like this 

 prescription is the state- 

 ment that the common 



red ant will exterminate the B flat. They are many 

 times smaller than the bugs, but it is said to be most de- 

 lightful to see them chase them out of cracks and crev- 

 ices, tear them limb from limb, and carry them off. Then 

 the next question is, what are you going to do with the 

 red ant? 



Fig. 21. Conorlrinns saxguisnga^ blood- 

 sucking cone-nose; the kissing-bug. 



