HEMIPTERA 105 



fact, together with its flat body permitting it to hide in 

 the smallest crevices, makes extermination difficult when 

 a house is once infested with them. As they have no 

 wings their usual method of entering a house is on articles 

 of clothing. The idea that they are associated with bats 

 and pigeons is a mistaken one, although a similar bug is 

 a parasite on the bats. 



The assassin bugs, many of which have beaks strong 

 enough to pierce the human skin, include the kissing bugs. 

 Of these Reduvius personatus living in dirty basements 

 and feeding on bedbugs and roaches, is common throughout 

 this country. It is a fierce biter, occasionally attacking 

 man and sometimes causing serious sickness, owing to the 

 germs on the dirty beak. 



The chinch bug (Blissus leucopterus) causes an annual 

 loss to the grain and grass crop of nearly twenty millions 

 of dollars. It passes the winter in 

 clumps of grass or other protected 

 places, and in the spring lays about 

 five hundred eggs in the grass sheaths 

 near the ground. The young as well 

 as the adults are gregarious. A 



M 



second generation develops from eggs FIG. ne. - photograph of 

 laid in August. The species occurs SJj*^ 8 " enlarged 

 over the entire eastern half of the 



United States, but it is most destructive in the Central 

 States, the Carolinas, and Virginia. 



The ill-smelling squash bug (Anasa Iristis) renders the 

 squash, melon, pumpkin, and cucumber crop an uncertain 

 one in many localities, while the harlequin cabbage bug 

 destroys millions of cabbage plants annually. The water 



