CIMICIDiE — BED-BUGS. 273 



"I was once at work on the Princess Charlotte's own 

 bedstead. I was in the room, and she asked me if I had 

 found anythinp^, and I told her no ; but just at that minute 

 I did happen to catch one, and upon that she sprang up on 

 the bed, and put her head on my shoulder, to look at it. 

 She had been tormented by the creature, because I was or- 

 dered to come directl}^, and that was the only one I found. 

 When the Princess saw it, she said, 'Oh, the nasty thing ! 

 That's what tormented me last night ; don't let him escape..' 

 I think he looked all the better for having tasted royal 

 blood. 



** I also profess to kill beetles, though you never can de- 

 stroy them so effectually as you can bugs ; for, you see, 

 beetles run from one house to another, and you can never 

 perfectly get rid of them ; you can only keep them under. 

 Beetles will scrape their way and make their road round a 

 lire-place, but how they go from one house to another I 

 can't say, but they do. 



" I never had patience enough to try and kill Fleas by my 

 process ; it would be too much of a chivey to please me. 



'* I never heard of any but one man who seriously went to 

 work selling bug-poison in the streets. I was told by some 

 persons that he was selling a first-rate thing, and I spent 

 several days to find him out. But, after all, his secret proved 

 to be nothing at all. It was train-oil, linseed and hernpseed, 

 crushed up all together, and the bugs were to eat it till they 

 burst. 



"After all, secrets for bug-poisons ain't worth much, for 

 all depends upon the application of them. For instance, it 

 is often the case that I am sent for to find out one bug in a 

 room large enough for a school. I've discovered it when 

 the creature had been three or four months there, as I could 

 tell by his having changed his jacket so often, for bugs shed 

 their skins, you know. No, there was no reason that he 

 should have bred ; it might have been a single gentleman or 

 an old maid. 



"A married couple of bugs will lay from forty to fifty eggs 

 at one laying. The eggs are oval, and are each as large as 

 the thirty-second part of an inch ; and when together are 

 in the shape of a caraway comfit, and of a bluish-wliite 

 color. They'll lay this quantity of eggs three times in a 

 season. The young ones are hatched direct from the ^^g, 

 and, like young partridges, will often carry the broken eggs 



24* 



