CHAPTEE XV. 



THE BED-BUG. 



IT has already been pointed out that the migrations of 

 some insects are largely dependent upon the commercial 

 enterprise of nations, and that it is to our own widely 

 extended commerce that we can trace the introduction 

 into this island of our kitchen pest, the common cock- 

 roach. We have now to consider another and much less 

 desirable importation, which we owe to a similar source. 

 The bed-bug, though now, unfortunately, firmly enough 

 established, is not indigenous here, and appears to have 

 been known as British for about the same length of time 

 as the cockroach, although it is, of course, impossible to 

 assign a definite date for its introduction. Like the 

 cockroach, it appeared first in seaport towns, whence it 

 spread to other parts ; but its advance to inland regions 

 was slow, if we may judge from a brochure entitled 

 "A Book of Buggs," written by John Southall in the 

 year 1730, in which he points out that at that date, 

 i.e., nearly 250 years after we first hear of the insect, 

 though " not one seaport in England is free from them, 

 in inland towns buggs are hardly known." The earliest 

 record of its occurrence in Britain is to be found in 

 a Latin treatise on "Insects, or Minute Animals," by 

 Thomas Mouffet, published in 1634. This writer, who 

 does not state whence he obtained his information, says 

 that in the year 1503, two ladies of noble family, 



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