112 HOUSEHOLD INSECTS 



kept them alve in vials and pill boxes without food for 

 many months. This would indicate that they could live 

 in unoccupied houses for several months, at least, even if 

 they were unable to obtain blood. It is doubtful if bed- 

 bugs could exist more than one season, say an active 

 summer and a dormant winter, in an uninhabited house 

 where no sources of blood were available in all that 

 time. 



It is exceedingly interesting in this connection to note 

 the experiments of Girault and Strauss on the host rela- 

 tions of the bedbug to mice. They found that bedbugs, 

 under certain conditions, at least, would attack both 

 recently killed mice and living mice and would gorge them- 

 selves with blood from these animals. It is not too much, 

 in the light of these experiments, to suppose that these 

 insects might eke out an existence in deserted dwellings 

 for a considerable period of time if mice were present to 

 serve as occasional hosts. It has also been shown that the 

 bedbug will thrive upon domestic fowls as hosts and feed 

 upon the cat, dog, rabbit, and other animals. 



HABITS OF THE BEDBUG 



These hardly need discussion they are so well known. 

 Of course they frequent beds particularly, but are found, 

 when abundant, in cracks of the floor, behind baseboards, 

 window casings, and even in cracks of the ceiling. 

 Wooden bedsteads, especially the large old-fashioned ones, 

 are most apt to be infested. Iron beds do not afford 

 many hiding places for them and are not universally 

 infested. We have, however, seen them in iron bedsteads 

 and in one case found a colony of 30 or 40 bugs living and 



