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distributed throughout the tropics, and probably throughout 

 the entire inhabited world. It is a flattened, brownish, 

 ovoid insect, without wings and with mouth parts well 

 adapted for piercing and sucking. It is very easy for a 

 house to become infested with the bed bug and very difficult 

 to free it from the pest. 



Their flattened structure makes it possible for these 

 insects to hide in the smallest of crevices, and they secrete 

 themselves in any cracks or joints in the framework of beds. 

 They also hide in cracks in the floors and walls, behind wall- 

 paper, and in mattresses and pillows. When it is discov- 

 ered that bed bugs have become established in a bed, the 

 following procedure should be adopted. The linen, mattress 

 and pillows should be taken out of doors and carefully 

 searched for any of these insects. Every possible hiding- 

 place such as r seams, hems, and the knots with which the 

 mattress is tied, should be carefully examined and brushed 

 with a stiff brush. Sheets should be brushed and hung up 

 in the sun, and pillows should be examined as carefully as 

 the mattress. The frame of the bed should be taken apart, 

 and every joint and crevice and the springs examined. 

 If bed bugs have been established for any length of time, 

 their hiding places will be revealed by discoloured spots 

 caused by the excrement of these insects, by their cast 

 skins, and the empty egg shells which are pearly white in 

 colour. Kerosene and turpentine are excellent insecti- 

 cides for the destruction of this pest. These should be 

 applied liberally wherever any signs of bed bugs are seen, 

 and it would be well to soak thoroughly every joint and 

 crevice in the structure of the bed and the springs. This 

 examination and treatment should be repeated three times 

 at intervals of a week ; and if the insect makes its re- 

 appearance later, the entire course ?of treatment should be 

 repeated. Iron bedsteads are greatly to be preferred to 

 those made of wood, as they offer fewer opportunities for 

 bed bugs to hide. 



Bed bugs have the power to live for long periods, under 

 conditions which make it impossible for them to obtain 

 human blood for food. Old beds which have been stored for 

 some time, away from any sleeping apartments, have been 

 found to be infested and those which are used only for short 

 periods separated by long intervals, have been known to 

 contain the insects, which in these situations are, as might 

 be expected, most voracious. The traveller in the tropics 



