Insect Pests of House and Garden. 



(^59 



for wings, they have been gradually lost during the many ages of its 

 parasitism on man until now but mere pads remain. This is a most 

 fortunate circumstance, for flying bedbugs would be intolerable and the 

 bane of the most thrifty housewife. The bedbug has mouth-parts, 

 like an aphid or sqUash stink-bug, that are fitted for piercing and suck- 

 ing. It is thoroughly nocturnal in habits, going into concealment at 

 daylight, either in cracks in the bedstead, under loose wallpaper or 

 wherever its much flattened body can squeeze in. It feeds normally 

 only on human blood, and even the young bugs are able to fast for many 

 months. The white, oval eggs (Fig, 24) are 

 laid in batches in cracks and crevices, and 

 hatch in a week or ten days. A generation 

 of the insect may develop in about seven 

 weeks, but the time varies much, depending 

 on warmth and food supply. 



It is a common notion that bats, swallows 

 or pigeons may introduce the human bed- 

 bug into houses. Scientists find, however, 

 that each of these animals has its own 

 species of bedbug, and these do not infest 

 man. 



To rid a badly infested room of bedbugs 

 it is often necessary to give it a thorough 

 cleaning and fumigating with sulfur; then 

 re-paper or re-color the walls and re-paint 



or oil the wood-work. When iron bedsteads are used in place of the 

 old wooden ones with their many cracks and crevices, and when rugs 

 instead of carpets are used on tight floors, it is not a difficult 

 matter to rid a room of these too sociable pests. For many years the 

 standard bedbug poison has been a solution of corrosive sublimate in 

 alcohol and turpentine. The bedbugs, however, can not eat this poison, 

 for their mouth-parts are fitted only for sucking up liquid, and its effective- 

 ness is due largely to the latter ingredients, which probably kill all the 

 bugs that are hit. There are several much cheaper and just as effective 

 liquids that can be more safely used. Bedbugs can be more surely 

 reached in bedsteads or cracks in the room by injecting a liberal dose 

 of benzine or kerosene with a common, machine oil-can. It is a common 

 practice with many thrifty housewives yearly to treat every bed in 

 this way. 



Fig. 24. Bedbug and its egg, 

 much enlarged. 



