96 THE INSECT WOELD. 



wings, which serve for flight. Its head, narrow, supported by a 

 well-defined neck, is provided with two composite, and two simple 

 eyes. It requires, no doubt, to see very clearly, as it flies by 

 night. It should not be caught without great caution. If 

 you desire to examine it closely, when in the hottest part of the 

 summer it comes in the evening, and flutters round the lights, 

 you must be careful how you seize it, for it stings. The wounds 

 inflicted by it are very painful, more painful than those of the 

 bee, and they immediately cause a swelling in the member 

 wounded. 



As the lieduvius kills different insects very rapidly by piercing 

 them with its long beak, it is probable that it secretes some kind 

 of venom. But as yet the organ that produces this poison has not 

 been discovered. However that may be, its beak is curved, and 

 about the tenth of an inch long, the surface bristling with hairs. 

 It is composed of four joints, and contains four stiff, lanceolate, and 

 very pointed squamose hairs. 



This insect often attacks other little insects in the place where 

 spiders spin their webs. When they walk on, or are caught in, 

 the spiders' webs, the spiders take care not to seize them, for they 

 fear their sting. They prudently allow them to toss about in 

 their nets, where they very soon die of hunger. The Reduvius 

 is often seen, either a prisoner or dead, in the midst of a spider's 

 web. 



We will let a celebrated naturalist, Charles de Gfeer, that savant 

 who has acquired more glory than any other since Reaumur, by 

 his profound and persevering studies of the habits and organisation 

 of insects, speak. De Geer was a Swede, and a contemporary of 

 Reaumur's. Let us listen to what the Swedish Reaumur says 

 about the Reduvius personatus : 



" This bug," says Charles de Geer, " has, in the pupal condition, 

 or before its wings are developed, an appearance altogether hideous 

 and revolting. One would take it, at the first glance, for one of 

 the ugliest of spiders. That which above all renders it so dis- 

 agreeable to the sight is that it is entirely covered and, as it were, 

 enveloped with a greyish matter, which is nothing else but the 

 dust which one sees in the corners of badly- swept rooms, and 

 which is generally mixed with sand and particles of wool, or silk, 



