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BUG. 



we shall not be charged with want of delicacy in 

 dwelling upon them. In the first place therefore it 

 is to be noticed as a curious circumstance, that, 

 although belonging to an order of winged insects, the 

 Cimex lectularius is destitute of organs of flight, a 

 deprivation which appears attributable to the peculiar 

 habits of the insect, which would in a great measure 

 render the possession of wings almost useless ; there 

 is, however, to be perceived a pair of flat, rounded, 

 and moveable appendages, occupying about one-sixth 

 part of the abdomen, and which are evidently the 

 rudiments of a pair of wing-covers. The abdomen 

 itself is flat and nearly of a rounded form. The ros- 

 trum or sucker is attached to the under side of the 

 head, and when unemployed is extended towards the 

 breast ; but this organ, instead of being four-jointed, 

 as in the majority of the great Linmean group Cimex, 

 is composed of only three short joints, enclosing 

 several fine setae or bristles, which serve not only to 

 wound but also to act, by way of capillary attraction, 

 in raising the blood of the objects attacked. This 

 numerical deficiency induced Latreille in his ' Families 

 Naturelles' to unite this insect with several other 

 groups into a separate tribe which he termed Mcm- 

 branaccee, but the Cimex lectularus is distinguished 

 from all the insects with which it was thus associated, 

 by the slender thread-like terminal joints of the 

 antennae, a character of some importance in the clas- 

 sification of the Linnccan Cimices. Fabricius states 

 that the mouth is unfurnished with any lip, but we 

 have distinctly perceived this organ at the external 

 base of the rostrum, in the form of a small and flat- 

 tened nearly oval plate. The tarsi of the cimex are 

 three-jointed, in which respect it likewise differs from 

 the other mernbranaceae. In respect, therefore, to 

 the structure of this insect, we find numerous charac- 

 ters which throw considerable difficulties in the way 

 of its classification amongst the other species of the 

 Limiieau geuus. Fabricius has introduced much 

 confusion into the nomenclature of these insects, 

 by applying the term Cimex to other species, and by 

 placing the Lectularius in his genus Acanthia; this 

 improper application of names, although not adopted 

 in France and England, is still pursued in Germany, 

 where the Fabrician system was most deeply rooted. 

 The original English name, as we learn from MoufTet, 

 was likewise different from that now universally given 

 to this insect, which in his time (1634) was termed 

 wall-louse, and Messrs. Kirby and Spence suggest 

 that the term bug, which is a Celtic word signifying a 

 ghost or goblin, was applied to them after Ray's time, 

 most probably because they were considered as " ter- 

 rors by night ;" hence, our English word bug-bear : 

 and in like manner the passage in the Psalrns, " Thou 

 shalt not be afraid for the terror by night," (xci. 5,) 

 is rendered in Matthew's Bible " Thou shalt not 

 nede be afraid of any bugs by night." 



Southall in his treatise upon the Cimex Lectularius, 

 published at Ipswich in 1793, and which reached a 

 second edition, states that the first appearance of 

 bugs in London, occurred after the great fire in 1 666, 

 " which learned men," says he, " united in thinking 

 were imported with the new deal timber, as the bugs 

 were naturally fond of turpentine woods." That the 

 latter circumstance took place is perhaps perfectly 

 correct* ; indeed, Linnaeus was of opinion, that this 



* " A sort of prejudice exists in England, and particularly in 

 ondon that while all old houses swarm with bugs, the newly 



insect is not originally a native of Europe, and that it 

 was imported from America ; but there is abundance 

 of evidence to show that they were known in England 

 before the great fire, since Mouffet records the cir- 

 cumstance which occurred in 1503, of a Dr. Pennius 

 being called in great haste to visit two noble ladies, 

 residing at a little village called Mortlake, on the 

 banks of the Thames, who were greatly alarmed by 

 the appearance of bug bites, which were considered 

 as symptoms of the plague or some such contagious 

 disease, and whose fears were only dispelled by the cap- 

 ture of the insects and the statement of their physician, 

 who happened also to be a naturalist. As a native of 

 Europe it has been known for centuries, being noticed 

 by Aristotle (Hist. liv. 5. chap, xxxi.) under the name 

 of Coris, by Galen, Dioscorides, Pliny, &c., who state 

 the medical virtues which it was supposed to possess, 

 especially as a remedy against the bite of serpents. It 

 was also applied in numerous other diseases, as we 

 learn from Mouffet, who has collected the learning of 

 the ancients and of the middle ages upon this and 

 other similar subjects. The medical student of the 

 present day will smile at learning that twelve live 

 bugs taken fasting (four per diem) was an approved 

 remedy against the colic. Whether the apparent 

 rarity of these insects in England was the result of the 

 superior cleanliness of its inhabitants over those of 

 France, Germany and Italy, as Mouffet states, may, 

 perhaps, indeed be doubted ; certain it is that it now 

 thrives in our climate as well as elsewhere, sometimes, 

 especially when unmolested, swarming to a most 

 intolerable degree, not only in inhabited but also in 

 empty houses, getting under the wainscotting, &c., 

 where it appears strange that it should be able to 

 obtain nourishment. A precisely analogous case, how- 

 ever, occurs in the musquito and some other blood- 

 thirsty insects, which, although they are exceedingly 

 tormenting, must, from their place of residence being 

 in damp, marshy, and unfrequented situations, for the 

 most part be totally unacquainted with what appears 

 their natural food. So, in like manner, we are in- 

 formed by Oedmann, in the New Transactions of the 

 Academy of Sciences of Stockholm, that it is a pre- 

 judice amongst the country people in Sweden, that 

 the house bug resides in the common yellow wall 

 lichen which grows on juniper bushes, &c., but that 

 no entomologist ever yet found the real house bug in 

 standing trees ; and he proceeds to detail some cir- 

 cumstances which appear to prove that these insects 

 are occasionally resident in trees, stating that some 

 workmen in the month of August, whilst engaged in 

 cutting wood in Namdo Sound, aroused a bat which 

 flew out of a hole in a hollow elder tree : searching for 

 more, the workmen hit the tree violently, and a mass 

 was heard to drop, which on being pulled out con- 

 sisted merely of bugs ; it was impossible that they 

 could be deceived with such well known vermin ; 

 moreover, they found beneath the wings of the bats 

 real bugs in addition to the usual insects which infest 

 those animals. The whole quantity of bugs amounted 

 to about three quarts. M. Blix, examining this phe- 

 nomenon, found in the bottom of the hollow tree two 

 nests of bats, formed of straw and soft earth ; and 



built ones are exempt from this execrable annoyance ; in no 

 part of the metropolis, however, are those noxious insects to be 

 met with in such abundance, as in the new houses erected in 

 the Regent's Park, into which they have been introduced in the 

 American timber employed in their construction. On examin- 

 ing the timber as it comes from the ship, it will be found that 

 the bugs absolutely fill up the crevices." Monthly Mag. 



