64 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
plained that the blackberries he was eating tasted so much 
like Bed-bugs, by telling him, ‘‘ Never mind, sonny, keep on 
eating them—our doctor, the blacksmith, says they are good 
for fever.” 
Considered as a whole, the insects of this order are not 
as injurious as are Caterpillars and many grubs, but some 
of them are quite destructive, as, for instance, the Plant- 
lice, which absorb so much of the juices of vegetables as to 
cause their decay. The Cochineal is the only insect of 
this Order from which we derive great benefit, and that is 
of vast importance as a coloring substance. I say the only 
one—I ought, perhaps, to include the much-despised Bed- 
bug, for which I always had a great aversion until I acci- 
dentally learned its utility. Some few years ago I fell in 
with an industrious mechanic, who had a wife and four 
half-grown children, living in Avenue B, New York—all 
healthy, industrious, and in thriving circumstances. He 
told me that they all worked every day from three o’clock 
in the morning until eleven o’clock at night; and when 1 
expressed my astonishment at their being able to work so 
hard with only four hours’ sleep at night, he answered that 
they could not do otherwise, for they could not go to bed 
until from the want of sleep they were sufficiently benumb- 
ed to be insensible to the stings of the Bed-bugs, who after 
about four hours would overcome their insensibility and 
oblige them to leave their beds. Here behold the utility 
of Bed-bugs! they make industrious and wealthy. Per- 
haps the consumption of the midnight oil and the early ris- 
ing of college students may also, in some measure, be attrib- 
uted to the friendly hints of these interesting insects. 
Cicade. 
The Cicada, improperly called Locust, contains a number 
of species. The Rep-rEvep Cicapa (Cicada septemdecim), 
which in all entomological works, particularly in the Unit- 
