THE BEDBUG. 3 
VARIETIES AND RELATED INSECTS. 
What may eventually prove to be mere variations of the ordinary 
type of human bedbug have been described as distinct species in sev- 
eral instances. For example, the common bedbug of southern Asia is 
supposed to present some slight variations from the European type, 
chiefly in being somewhat more elongate. These slightly diverging 
forms of the bedbug in different parts of the world, which are not 
known to have any special bird or animal host other than human 
beings, may prove to be merely local races or varieties of the ordinary 
bedbug. . 
Birds, bats, and poultry are attacked in various parts of the world 
by a considerable number of parasitic bugs, closely related to the 
bedbug, which live on their hosts and in nests and about roosting 
places. One of these species, occurring abundantly in southwestern 
United States and Mexico,' probably originally a parasitic messmate 
on birds and bats, has come to be an unmitigated poultry pest, and 
from the close association in these regions between poultry and human 
beings, is often a serious house pest—more so even than the true bed- 
bug. Others of the species infesting birds and bats may also on occa- 
sion become house pests. For example, the nests of the common 
barn or eaves swallow of this country often swarm with the barn- 
swallow bug,? and from such nests under the eaves of dwelling 
houses these bugs sometimes gain entrance to houses and beds and 
are the cause of much annoyance. Similarly a species,? normally a 
parasite of birds and bats in the Old World, and also in Brazil and 
the West Indies, not infrequently becomes a human parasite. 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
The bedbug belongs to the order Hemiptera, which includes the 
true bugs or piercing insects, characterized by possessing a piercing 
and sucking beak. The bedbug is to man what the chinch bug is 
to grains or the squash bug to cucurbs. Like nearly all the insects 
parasitic on animals, however, it is degraded structurally, its para- 
sitic nature and the slight necessity for extensive locomotion having 
resulted, after many ages doubtless, in the loss of wings and the 
assumption of a comparatively simple structure. Before feeding, the 
adult (fig. 2) is much flattened, oval, and in color is rust red, with 
the abdomen more or less tinged with black. When engorged the 
body becomes much bloated and elongated and brightly colored 
from the ingested blood. The wings are represented by the merest 
rudiments, barely recognizable pads, and the simple eyes or ocelli 
1( Cimer) Haematosiphon inodora Dugés. 
2( Cimer) Oeciacus hirundinis Jenyns. 
3 Cimczr hemipterus Fab. (synonym, rotundatus Sign.). 
