Pacicard ] llELATIONS OF INSECTS TO MAN. 71 



easily ascertained. If so, tlien they are as truly bird para- 

 sites as the lice, to which they are (especially Avhen young) 

 not remotely allied in form and structure. That they (or a 

 closely allied species) sometimes swarm in the nests of 

 swallows, we have been informed by a gentleman in Iowa, 

 who found a nest of swallows, as stated in the " Guide to 

 the Study of Insects," on the outside of a court house which 

 swarmed with bed-bugs ; and they were not conGned to the 

 nest, but flocked in the apartments, "frequently serving 

 well pointed bills of ejectment against the legal gentlemen 

 within." They continued to trouble the occupants year 

 after j'car until the stream of hemipterous life was traced to 

 its fountain head, the swallows' nests. The opinion that 

 the bed-bug originally lived under the feathers of house- 

 haunting semi-domestic birds is strengthened by the fact 

 that a European species of Cimex lives on the body of the 

 swallow, another on the bat, while a third is found in pigeon 

 houses and is named from that fact the Cimex of dove- 

 cotes {Cimex columbarius) . We have in this country a 

 flat bodied red bug, closely allied to the true bed-bug, but 

 its habits are quite unknown. 



We need not tell harrowing tales of the disgusting habits 

 of this scourge, for are there not fresh experiences in the 

 minds of those who travel most in the more unsettled portions 

 of our country, as well as the other parts of the globe? A 

 word or two on some less known traits of this creature may 

 give some useful hints in dealing with it. The parent lays 

 white oval eggs, and when tlie young bug is fully formed 

 within it escapes by pushing off" the end like a lid, as one 

 pushes up a trap door. The young are at first whitish and 

 transparent, the stomach being visible, usually red from being 

 filled with blood, and at this time it bears a striking resem- 

 blance to a louse. Westwood sa3^s that it is eleven weeks 

 in attaining its full size. The adult is hard lived in a double 

 sense ; its tenacity of life is only equalled by its viciousness 



7 



