162 BUG. 



treatise on this animal, that it was scarcely known 

 in England before the year 1670, when it was im- 

 ported among the timber used in rebuilding the 

 city of London after the great fire of 1666. That 

 it was however known much earlier is hardly to 

 be doubted, though probably far less common 

 than at present; since Mouffet informs us that 

 Dr. Penny, one of the early compilers of that 

 History of Insects, relates his having been sent 

 for in great haste to Mortlake in Surry to visit 

 two noble ladies who imagined themselves seized 

 with the usual symptoms of the plague; but on 

 Penny's demonstrating to them the true cause of 

 their complaint, viz. having been bitten by these 

 insects, and even detecting them in their pre- 

 sence, the whole affair was turned into a jest. 

 This was in the year 1583. 



To give a particular description of an animal 

 so well known would be superfluous: it may be 

 sufficient to observe, that it is of an oval shape, 

 about the sixth of an inch in length, of a very 

 compressed or flat form, and of a reddish brown 

 colour. It is easily destroyed by pressure, being 

 of a very tender nature; and when bruised diffuses 

 a highly unpleasant smell. In the beginning of 

 summer it deposits its eggs, which are very small, 

 white, and of an oval shape, each standing on a 

 kind of short pedicle or footstalk, in the cavities 

 of walls or wood-work, and from these are hatched, 

 in the course of a few weeks*, the young, which 



* Three weeks, according to Southall. 



