SUCKING INSECTS. 



187 



found in the Mauritius, the bite of which is more 

 venomous than the sting of a scorpion, being suc- 

 ceeded by a swelling as big as the egg of a pigeon, 

 which continues for four or five days*. Ray tells us 

 that his friend Willughby had suffered severe tem- 

 porary pain, in the same way, from a water-bug 

 (Notonecta glauca, LINN.) f- The instrument em- 

 ployed by some of the water-bugs appears, from 

 Savigny's dissections, to be still more formidable than 

 the preceding. 



Magnified figures of the sucker of a water- bug (Nepa neptunia). a, the 

 sucker in its sheath j 6, the several parts developed, so as to exhibit 

 them separately ; c, the sucker unsheathed. 



From another pertinacious insect, the flea (Pulex 

 irritans, LINN.), being without wings, some of our 

 readers may suppose it to be nearly allied to the bed- 

 bug ; though the former does not even belong to the 

 same order, but to a new one (Aphamptera, KIRBY), 

 established on the principle that the wings are obso- 

 lescent or inconspicuous. As we have elsewhere 

 mentioned several extraordinary feats of strength re- 

 corded of fleas by various authors j, we shall here 



* Voyage to the Isle of France. t Hist. Insect. 58. 

 I Insect Transformations, p. 180. 



