HETEROPTERA. 321 



The Bed Bug is generally supposed to have been im- 

 ported from abroad some persons think in pine-wood 

 from America. Southall (in Westwood) says that its 

 first appearance was after the fire of London in 1666 ; 

 but it is mentioned as having been seen in 1503. It is 

 believed to feed upon the sap of the pine, and certainly 

 " harbours" not only in new but also in old wood a fact 

 which has helped to make common the substitution of 

 iron for wooden bedsteads. The countless hosts in 

 which these insects occasionally appear, not by degrees 

 but suddenly, are very remarkable, and the superstition 

 attaches to them that this sudden appearance is por- 

 tentous of a death in the house. It is very certain that 

 they often live upon food other than the juices of animals, 

 from an account published some years ago of a long 

 closed and neglected building, which on being opened, 

 was found to contain these insects in millions ; they were 

 taken out in shovelfuls, and it required the labour of 

 days to effect anything like a clearance from them. 

 Pigeon-houses are liable to be infected by them. 



TingidaB, the fifth family, contains nine genera of 

 broad, flat insects, varying in many respects, but to be 

 recognised by the antennae, of which the last joint is as 

 thick as, or thicker than, the preceding, and by the short 

 three-jointed beak, which lies in a groove under the head. 

 The species are all small. 



In some genera, the shell of the thorax and the 

 elytra are much wider than the body to be covered, and 

 the pro-thorax goes down into a point like the con- 

 spicuous scutellum of some other heteropterous insects. 

 Most of the family display a beautiful network on 

 the surface of the thorax and elytra. 



In one genus, Aradus, on the contrary, there is a 



Y 



