MEMBRANACEI. 551 



tended to the entire suborder. The antennae are four-jointed, 

 with the tip clavate or knobbed. The ocelli are, for the most 

 part, wanting; the beak is gutter-like, with a three-jointed 

 sheath (labium). The tarsi are three-jointed, without any 

 foot-pads. In Cimex the beak reaches, when laid upon the 

 breast, as far as the fore coxae ; the legs and antennae are cov- 

 ered with fine hairs ; the second antennal joint is longest. 

 The prothorax is elliptical, and the metathorax is nearly as 

 broad as the circular abdomen ; the wings are wanting. 



The habits of Cimex lectularius Linn., the bed-bug (Fig. 

 555), are too well known to require any farther mention here. 

 It is exceedingly tenacious of life, and ordi- 

 nary bug-powders and other applications are 

 useless unless the most scrupulous cleanliness is 

 exercised besides. The eggs are oval, white, i 

 and the young bugs escape by pushing off a lid 

 at one end of the shell. They are white trans- 

 parent, differing from the perfect insect in hav- Fig. 555. 

 ing a broad triangular head, and short and thick antennae. 

 Indeed, this is the general form of the louse, to which the larva 

 of Cimex has a very close affinity. Some Cimices are para- 

 sites, infesting pigeons, swallows, etc., in this way also show- 

 ing their near relation to the lice. 



The bed-bug is rust-red, with brown hairs, and is two 

 and a half lines in length. It lives as a parasite on the do- 

 mestic birds, such as the dove. Mr. James McDonald writes 

 me that he has found a nest of swallows on a court house in 

 Iowa, swarming with bed-bugs. In Europe the Cimex Mrun- 

 dinis Herr. Schaeff. lives on the swallow ; Cimex pipistrelli 

 Jenyns lives on the bat ; and Cimex columbarius is found in 

 pigeon houses. 



Westwood states that the bed-bug is eleven weeks in attain- 

 ing its full size. DeGeer has kept full sized individuals in a 

 sealed bottle for more than a year without food. The Cock- 

 roach is the natural enenry of the bed-bug, and destroys large 

 numbers. Houses have been cleaned of them after being 

 thoroughly fumigated with brimstone. 



Bed-bugs, as well as other bugs, plant-lice, etc., may be de- 

 stroyed by a preparation consisting of thirty parts of unpuri- 



