274 CIMICIDiE — BED-BUGS. 



about with them, clinginp^ to their back. They g^et their 

 fore- quarters out, and then they run about before the other 

 legs are completely cleared. 



"As soon as the bugs are born they are of a cream color, 

 and will take to blood directly ; indeed, if they don't get it 

 in two or three days, they die ; but after one feed they will 

 live a considerable time without a second meal. I have 

 known old bugs to be frozen over in a horse-pond — when 

 the furniture had been thrown in the water — and there they 

 have remained for a good three weeks ; still, after they have 

 got a little bit warm in the sun's rays, they have returned to 

 life again. 



" I myself kept bugs for five years and a half without 



food, and a housekeeper at Lord H 's informed me 



that an old bedstead that I was then moving from a store- 

 room was taken down forty-five years ago, and had not been 

 used since, but the bugs in it were still numerous, though as 

 thin as living skeletons. They couldn't have lived upon the 

 sap of the wood, it being worm-eaten and dry as a bone. A 

 bug will live for a number of years, and we find that when 

 bugs are put away in old furniture without food, they don't 

 increase in number ; so that, according to my belief, the bugs 

 I just mentioned must have existed forty-five years : besides, 

 they were large ones, and very dark colored, which is an- 

 other proof of age. 



" It is a dangerous thing for bugs when they are shedding 

 their skins, which they do about four times in the course of 

 a year ; when they throw off their hard shell and have a 

 soft coat, so that the least touch will kill them ; whereas at 

 other times they will take a strong pressure. I have plenty 

 of bug-skins, which I keep by me as curiosities, of all sizes 

 and colors, and sometimes I have found the young bugs 

 collected inside the old ones' skins for warmth, as if they had 

 put on their father's great-coat. There are white bugs — 

 albinoes you may call 'em — freaks of nature like."^ 



1 London Labor and the London Poor, ill. 3G-9. 



