I 2 8 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



water-ousel and the ring-ousel ; but it requires only half an 

 eye to detect the connection of this word with oiseau, and 

 infer that at first an ousel meant simply a bird. The words 

 meat and fowl are other instances. An animal is coming 

 to mean, among ladies especially, a beast, as distinguished 

 from a bird or a fish. However, I am not philological, and 

 have no intention of trying to trace the subtle causes which 

 have combined to enable one seemingly insignificant and 

 totally vulgar little insect to draw to itself the whole mean- 

 ing of a wide word. To do so would take me over ground 

 which it is my object to avoid. In fact, my only reason for 

 alluding to the wider senses of the word "bug" is to dis- 

 abuse any one who may hastily entertain the notion that 

 my subject to-day is that particular species of cimex which 

 Linnaeus has defined as Nocturnum fcetidum animal. That 

 is not one of the tribes on my frontier. 



When naturalists speak of bugs they mean a certain 

 well-defined class of insects in which India is unhappily 

 very fertile. Most people confound them with beetles 

 which they resemble as much as a woodcock resembles an 

 owl. All beetles have jaws, and chew their food, while 

 bugs have only a tube, through which they suck liquid 

 refreshments, just as sherry-cobbler used to be taken when 



