1890.] MICROSCOPICAL JOUEISTAL. 195 



Jacob Z. Davis, of the State Mining Bureau. These consisted of dia- 

 tomaceous earth from Redondo Beach, Los Angeles county, accom- 

 panied by a list of the different species of diatoms it contained ; and a 

 piece of limestone from Santa Margarita, San Luis Obispo county, 

 abounding in fossil forms of foraminifera. The donation also included 

 a mounted microscopical section of this limestone, which showed the 

 forms to good advantage. 



J. G. Clark exhibited a quantity of statoblasts of Plumatclla^ which 

 he found floating in large quantities in the dish after the polyps had died. 

 These statoblasts, or winter eggs, are only extruded after the death of 

 the animal, and their preservation serves to perpetuate the species against 

 frost and drought. 



The President, Prof. Wickson, read a paper on " The Bed-bug Hun- 

 ter." Of the groups of Hef7iiptera which subsist on animal juices, he 

 said, some attack mankind only in self-defence ; others seem to relish 

 human blood enough to seek it occasionally, while others still make it 

 the chief means of support. The hemipters which seek human blood 

 as a sort of change from their usual diet of insect blood, include a formi- 

 dable insect, black, with red markings, and about an inch in length, 

 which sometimes invades human couches and is called the " big bed- 

 bug" i^Co7iorhinus sanguisiigus) . The remaining class, which uses 

 a most painful and poisonous piercer upon human flesh when disturbed, 

 is the " bed-bug hunter," which has been known from early times and 

 has usually been called by entomologists Reduvius personatus^ but is 

 now named Opslcoetus pei-sonatus. This insect, which is three-flfths 

 to four-fifths of an inch Jong, invests human habitations in search of the 

 common bed-bug, and is, therefore, called the " bed-bug hunter," but 

 it attacks flies and other insects. 



The specimen shown by Professor Wickson was received a few days 

 ago from a gentleman in San Joaquin county, who wrote that he found 

 the bug in his bed after it had bitten his wife three times. The same 

 lady had been bitten twice before at different parts of the county within 

 the past two years, and the gentleman wrote that others in their neigh- 

 borhood had also been bitten. Tlie effects of the bite cause much dis- 

 comfort, accompanied by intense itching and burning in the palms of 

 the hands and soles of the feet, gradually extending over the whole body. 



Dr. LeConte, in writing of this insect, states that when caught or un- 

 skilfully handled it always stings. In this case the pain is almost equal 

 to the bite of the snake, and the swelling and irritation which result 

 from it will sometimes last for a week. In very weak and irritable con- 

 stitutions it may even prove fatal. 



It would seem from the record given of the lady in San Joaquin 

 county, that this insect hardly waits to be '' caught or unskilfully han- 

 dled," but either attacks on his own account or receives the unconscious 

 movements of a sleeping person as interfering with his mission of hunt- 

 ing bed-bugs ; or, possibly, the experience related may go to show that 

 the insect relishes human blood from original sources as a change from 

 the juice of the bed-bug. In any event, it is certain the house-wife 

 would prefer to hunt bed-bugs without the aid of this dangerous and re- 

 pulsive insect, whose bite produces such discomfort. 



