~ 
Miscellaneous. Fi 
rally, like the Lepidoptera, sparing in individuals ; we attribute it to 
the uninterrupted extent of monotonous forest over which animal 
life is sparingly but widely scattered. However this makes a differ- 
ence in the commercial value of the subjects. The present collection 
is the fruits of two months’ devoted and almost exclusive attention 
to insects. Shells and Orchids continue to be exceedingly scarce.” 
How to prevent the Attacks of the Bed-bug, Cimex lectularius. 
By Joun Buacxwatt, F.L.S. 
To Richard Taylor, Esq. 
Oakland, December 7th, 1848. 
My pear Siz,—A short communication of mine, printed in the 
‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ second series, vol. ii. 
pp. 357-359, recommending the adoption of a method of preventing 
the attacks of the bed-bug, founded on the fact, established by ob- 
servation and experiment, that this loathsome insect, in consequence 
of not being provided with a climbing apparatus, is incapable of 
_ ascending hard dry bodies having highly polished perpendicular sur- 
faces, has elicited, I perceive, a few strictures from the pen of your 
- correspondent Walter White, Esq., to the purport, that the plan 
proposed is neither new in kind nor efficient in operation (‘ Annals 
and Magazine of Natural History,’ second series, vol. 11. pp.457,458), 
To the spirit in which the strictures are made, no objection can 
possibly be entertained; but I may be allowed to remark, that the 
sole object I had in contemplation when obtruding upon the readers 
of your widely-circulated Journal my thoughts in connexion with 
this practical application of entomological knowledge to the domestic 
comfort of thousands of human beings, was public utility ; whether 
the scheme propounded had novelty to recommend it or not, I had 
small means of ascertaining, and, indeed, did not stop to inquire, 
being satisfied that, speaking generally, it was, at all events, either 
unknown or strangely disregarded. 
‘With reference to the only circumstance advanced by Mr. White 
as militating against the efficacy of the project I have enunciated ; 
- namely, that bugs are in the habit of crawling up walls and along 
ceilings until they perceive that they are directly over beds, when 
they quit their hold of the plaster and drop upon them, I would ob- 
serve, that although neither reading nor personal experience had 
made me acquainted with this remarkable instinctive phenomenon 
in the natural history of the bed-bug, yet the idea had occurred to 
my mind that such a descent might sometimes happen accidentally ; 
but that as it would probably be a rare event, and, except in the 
case of an impregnated female, would not be likely to produce per- 
manent inconvenience, any special provision to counteract it was 
deemed unnecessary. Considered as the result of an innate propen- 
sity this act assumes a widely different character, and it becomes a 
matter of importance to determine in what manner it can be guarded 
