110 INSECTS. 



The scarlet locust, figured by Edwards in his 

 Natural History, came accidentally alive fronri 

 the West Indies in a basket of pine apples. A 

 very curious instance was observed in England 

 in 181 0, when an insect of the genus buprestis was 

 taken from a desk made of fir, brought from the 

 Baltic, and fixed up in 1788 or 1789. The cimex 

 lectularius, or bed bug, was scarcely known in 

 England until sixteen hundred se^ enty, when it is 

 said to have been imported among timber used 

 in rebuilding London, after the great fire of 1666. 

 The Americans assert the same thing in a more 

 extended sense, and insist that fleas, moth, bed- 

 bugs and cock roaches, are foreigners. 1 do not 

 believe that either allegation is correct. In 1670 

 there were not probably many bedsteads in Eng- 

 land to attract the bug. Rushes and straw form- 

 ed, at that period, the couches of most of the peo- 

 ple. I know that pigeons often swarm with bed 

 bugs, and also the domestic rabbit. I can speak 

 from experience, when I say that the American bed 

 bug is a larger variety than the English. How 

 €asy to avoid this evil by frequent ablutions — by 

 bedsteads made of iron, or without any apertures 

 — and by the use of a little sandal wood, which 

 is an antidote against all kinds of insec's, or in 

 this case, of sassafras, which is said to be a com- 

 plete preventive of the cimex lectularius, and 



