398 THE MEMBRANACEA. 



The reader will hardly need to be informed of the 

 localities in which the common Bed-bug (Cimex lec- 

 tularius) is to be met with, nor will he, in all proba- 

 bility, require any detailed description of its general 

 appearance. Its disagreeable qualities, its painful 

 bite, and abominable odour, are also unfortunately but 

 too well known, and many of my readers will probably 

 think that the only point of interest connected with 

 this disgusting inmate of our sleeping apartments is 

 the best mode of getting rid of its company. This, how- 

 ever, is by no means the case, for although the entomo- 

 logist may agree with the rest of mankind in personal 

 dislike to the Bed-bug, as an entomologist he is com- 

 pelled to admit that it is an interesting insect. 



That the common Bug is not a native of this coun- 

 try seems very probable, and indeed we have accounts 

 of the alarm occasioned by its appearance when it 

 was first observed here, about the beginning of the six- 

 teenth century ; and at a comparatively recent period 

 it was almost unknown in some parts of the north of 

 Scotland. The common belief that this insect was 

 introduced into this country from America, in the 

 timber used in rebuilding London after the Great Fire, 

 and hence spread to the continent of Europe, is, how- 

 ever, certainly erroneous, as various ancient authors 

 were well acquainted with it, and Dioscorides even 

 prescribes nine bugs enclosed in a bean as a remedy 

 for a fever. Its extension from place to place must 

 be greatly facilitated by its power of supporting a 

 very long abstinence from food, although, as is well 

 known, it loses few opportunities of feasting upon our 

 blood, and I am far from believing that it can find 

 sustenance, as is generally supposed, in any moisture 

 that may exist in a piece of solid deal. 



