The Bug Family, 



i6i 



a big-headed pin standing erect, and making the bug appear as though it had been 



in the hands of an entomologist. This bug attacks the growing plants of tea, and 



an allied species known as moesa blight shares its bad habits. Not only do the bugs 



suck at the young leaves and shoots, and impair their quality for tea-making, but 



the female pierces holes in the shoots and plugs them with her eggs, which may 



account for the unwonted flavour one 



sometimes gets in a cup of tea. There are 



at least two others, the chinch-bug ^ and 



the cotton-stainer,- that are destructive, 



the first to corn and grass, the second to 



the cotton crop. The latter species has 



also takrn, in Florida, to sucking oranges — 



not the leaves, but the fruit — and wherever 



one has dipped his beak through the peel, 



the orange begins to rot. 



But the great pest among bugs, the 

 one which has created a prejudice against 

 the whole race, and almost made the word 

 one to be tabooed, is the atrocious blood- 

 sucker^ that has attached itself to human 

 habitations, where the structure and the 

 furnishing has made it possible. In this 

 country at the present day it is probably 

 onlv the poor that suffer from this pest, 

 but in former times all classes knew it too 

 wt'll. Like some other Insect annoyances 

 it is an introduction from abroad, though 

 no one can say which country is its proper 

 home. It has been with us for about 

 four hundred years, probablv entering 

 our seaports in home-bound ships, and 

 gradually extending from the circumference 

 to tlu^ centre. In the bed-bug wings are 

 not dt'vel()])ed, though the vestiges of them 

 may still be found. It is possibk' that 

 finding man with his ships and couches 

 so good a carrier to extend its distribution, 

 it gave up developing wings as no longer 

 necessary to it. We do not wish to dwell 

 at length upon what many readers will 

 probably consider a disgusting subject, 

 but there are one or two points whith, we think, will ha\-e intt-rest for them. Many 

 persons tolerate cockroaches in the house in the belief that these Insects protect 

 them from the ]M)ssibilit\- of an invasion of bed-bugs. This belief appears to be 

 well touiuled, tor it is said that the red-coat is a bonne boitche for the brown-coat. 



1 Hli.ssus k'ucoptfius. - Uysdcrcus siiturellus ^ Ciine.x lectularius. 



Water Scorpion. 



[£. Stct>. F.L.S. 



All t\.ini]il<> ot till- aquatic bugs. The broad, llat body is very 

 tliiu ; aud the foro-hinbs are developed to fonn admirable 

 elaspiiig organs, the shank and foot closing down in a slit along 

 tlie front edge of the thigh. Three times the natural size. 



