ENTOMOLOGY 337 



ing-houses and tenements the matter is more serious, and occasion- 

 ally rooms or entire houses become almost uninhabitable. 



The full-grown insect is about one-quarter of an inch in length, 

 broadly oval in shape and very flat; so flat and thin indeed that 

 it is able to get into the smallest crack or crevice, and the body is 

 soft and flexible enough to turn a sharp bend in the crack or open- 

 ing. The creature has no wings; but has little shoulder pads that 

 mark the places where wings are attached in allied forms. Nor- 

 mally they are red-brown in color and have an unpleasant buggy 

 odor that becomes apparent when they are crushed or even handled. 



At night the insects make their way to any inhabitant sleeping 

 in the room, and after feeding they go again into hiding in the 

 bed if there are suitable places, anywhere else in the room if there 

 are not. They get behind baseboards, picture mouldings, loose 

 wallpaper, picture frames, in the crevices of chairs and other furni- 

 ture, and in fact wherever there is an opening to crawl into. After a 

 full meal of blood the insect remains quiet for several days, occa- 

 sionally voiding a spot of black excrement which, when it occurs on 

 the bed linen or on some exposed part of the bedstead, at once in- 

 forms the experienced housekeeper of the presence of the pest. 



The eggs are whitish in color, oval in form and are laid in little 

 masses in the usual hiding places of the adults. They hatch in 

 about eight days, and the resulting young are like the adults ex- 

 cept in size, and until they have fed, are whitish and almost trans- 

 parent. Their rate of growth depends upon their ability to get 

 food. They can live for weeks without it, but if they get access to 

 their prey regularly, it takes them from seven to ten days from one 

 molt to another. They molt five times, so a minimum period of 

 forty-five days from egg to adult is required, and during that time 

 the insect must have fed at least five times. A single female may 

 lay several batches of eggs, so that when once started multiplica- 

 tion is extremely rapid. 



Usually, gasoline is all that is necessary to get rid of the pests 

 when they are confined to the beds or bedrooms of an ordinary 

 dwelling-house or residence; but it must be a liberal and at least 

 a duplicate application. The modern brass or iron bedstead is 

 easily examined and kept clean; the old-fashioned wooden beds, 

 especially some of the large heavy articles, give an abundant chance 

 to hide and are correspondingly difficult to clean out. 



On several occasions more or less badly infested bedrooms have 

 been treated as follows with good success. Provided with a gallon 

 can of gasoline and a long pipette with a large rubber bulb an oil 

 can with a long thin spout might have done as well the bed was 

 taken apart and every crevice, crack and joint filled with gasoline. 

 The mattress was dosed at all the tuftings. Gasoline was poured 

 along the picture moulding and squirted behind the baseboard. 

 Every picture was taken down, the back was removed and the edges 

 of the frames -were treated. Every chair was examined and gasoline 

 was used in every opening. The bureau, washstand and other furni- 

 ture was as carefully handled and all the woodwork around the door 



