Miscellaneous. 457 



Mr. Hinds's genus Trilasmis, and it also resembles that genus in the 

 anterior basal and the upper opercular valves being very small, so 

 that it forms the passage between Pentalasmis and that genus. 

 ' There are in Mr. Fryer's collection two specimens, which differ 

 considerably from one another. One is pale red and elongate-ovate, 

 smooth, rather compressed, and the larger opercular valves have a 

 rather distinct line towards the extremity. The anterior basal valve 

 is much-compressed. The second is yellowish white, pink at the 

 base, ovate, swollen, slightly radiately and concentrically striated ; 

 the left larger opercular valve is larger than the right one, more 

 convex, and partly inclosing it ; the anterior valve and upper oper- 

 cular valve are very narrow. 



I propose to call the species Anatifa crassa. Peduncle short ; valves 

 thick, opake, convex, large, the anterior basal valve and upper oper- 

 cular valves very narrow. 



Inhab. Madeira, on Gorgonia, 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



How to prevent the Attacks of the Bed-bug, Cimex lectularius. 

 By Walter White, Esq. 



To Richard Taylor, Esq. 



Nov. 6, 1848. 



Sir, — May I be permitted to offer a few remarks on the commu« 

 nication " How to prevent the Attacks of the Bed-bug " in your last 

 number ? 



It is in no depreciatory spirit that I say the means recommended are 

 not new : more than twenty years ago I met with instances of in- 

 verted cones of glass being used as bases for bedposts ; sometimes 

 the entire leg below the framing was glass, or it stood in a glass 

 vessel lined with a viscous Huid. Similar instances have repeatedly 

 come to my knowledge since, and I may add that due precautions 

 were taken to isolate the bedstead, by keeping the curtains and 

 draperies clear of wall and floor. 



In spite of such precautions bugs will get into bedsteads, much to 

 the wonder of those ignorant of the reason why. I learnt it by ex- 

 perience during a five years' residence in New York, the head-quar- 

 ters of bugs. I slept on a French bedstead, having no hangings, and 

 placed quite free from all contact except the points by which it 

 touched the floor. It was well searched every day, a necessary pre- 

 caution where the thermometer is sometimes at 90° after sunset, yet 

 bugs found their way into the bed. They effected their entrance by 

 crawling up the walls and along the ceiling until over the bed, when 

 they let themselves fall, probably aware that the shock would not 

 be fatal. My attention was first drawn to the fact by the descent 

 of. one of the loathsome creatures into my mouth, while I was lying 

 in a dose in the dim twilight of a summer morning : after this nauseous 

 exj)crience I several times observed the fall of bugs. If surprised by 



