( 150 } 



ON HEMIPTERA, COMMONLY CALLED BUGS. 

 By Johx Scott. 



" It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love." 



Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I., scene 1. 



Can it be that the familiarity of the one has bred contempt 

 for all the others ? If so, on -what grounds ? and will any 

 one say why it is they should not be as thoroughly known 

 to us as other branches of Natural history ? Lepidoptera 

 and Coleoptera have been and are hunted after to such an 

 extent that everybody knows something about them. They 

 have been written about, and figured in so many popular 

 ways, that the only thing now remaining to be done is to 

 give a Shilling Volume depicting the undersides of the 

 creatures. 



Why not leave for a while this track, so much trodden, 

 and do something in another quite as interesting ? The same 

 Divine mark is imprinted on all, and the necessity for the 

 knowledsre of the one is as essential as that for the others. 

 Is it the Hemipterous smell which deters ? Gardeners grow 

 tulips and dahlias as well as roses, and can give us as much 

 information on the one as the other, yet the perfume of the 

 former is as inferior to that of the latter as is the colouring. 



Some of the bugs have no smell whatever, others give off 

 a rather agreeable odour, and others, again, emit a very dis- 



