BIONOMICS OF LECTULARIUS AND ROTUNDATUS 507 



in any kind of furniture. As most Indians sleep on the floor the 

 bugs crawl down from the walls and make their way to the nearest 

 sleeper. 



Although the natives periodically shake out the bugs from their beds, 

 mats, chairs, etc., they neglect to destroy the eggs, and in a short time 

 the pest becomes as plentiful as before. As often as not the bugs are 

 deposited just outside the house, with the result that they make their 

 way back either to the same room or an adjacent one, or pass into the 

 house of a neighbour. Bug traps are commonly used in many parts of 

 India. The simplest kind is made of a piece of wood about six inches 

 long, four inches wide and two inches thick ; about a dozen holes are 

 bored into it, into which the bugs can crawl. The trap is placed in the 

 bed among the clothes, and in a week or ten days it is taken out and 

 vigorously tapped on the ground ; the bugs fall out and are as a rule 

 allowed to escape, and they often make their way back again to the 

 house. 



It is well known that lectularlus can travel long distances. There is 

 a record of it leaving an uninhabited house by crawling out of a window 

 and passing along a drain pipe to an adjacent house, which it entered 

 through a window. The senior author has noted several instances in 

 which rotundatus travelled more than fifty yards to obtain a feed of blood, 

 returning each time to its original resting place. 



It is almost universally believed that the bed bug only bites the covered 

 parts of the body and this belief is brought forward as an argument 

 against the possibility of this insect acting as a carrier of the parasite of 

 Oriental Sore, a disease of the skin which is usually found on the exposed 

 parts of the body. This, however, is not the case, for the bed bug 

 is not an ectoparasite in the sense that it clings to its host like the body 

 or head louse ; it very rarely lays its eggs in clothes, always preferring 

 to deposit them on some fixed object. It does, however, often crawl into 

 one's clothes, hiding itself among the folds, especially about the waist. 

 C. rotundatus is a familiar object in the chairs and tables in Indian offices, 

 the clerks bringing them from their houses. The European pith topee 

 often becomes infested, and the Indian cloth head-dress is also a common 

 resting place for the bug ; it crawls into it when it is hung up on a nail on 

 a wall. 



Bugs which are resting in the frame work of a bed or in the bedding 

 only bite the uncovered parts of the body ; they crawl out of their resting 

 places and make their way either to the pillow and bite the face and neck, 

 or attack the exposed parts of the legs and arms. The senior author has 



