LIFE-IIISTOKY OF THE BED-EUG, 569 



by the parent at the very bottom of the crevices in which she 

 has made her home. There are four broods in the year, and 

 each female lays, on an average, fifty eggs each time. When 

 newly laid, the eggs are covered with a sort of varnish, which 

 rapidly hardens when exposed to the air, and forms a cement 

 by which the eggs are securely fixed to the object on whicli 

 they are laid. 



In some three weeks from the time that they are laid, the 

 young Bugs are hatched. They are then so small a? almost to 

 be invisible, and, in fact, unless they have tasted blood, can 

 hardly be seen except with a magnifying-glass. "When, how- 

 ever, they have succeeded in attacking some human being, the 

 extreme transparency of their skins causes the sucked blood to 

 be seen through their tissues, and they look like tiny moving 

 specks of scarlet. They attain their full growth in about three 

 months. 



As is the case with other blood-sucking insects, the Bug is 

 rather capricious in its attacks. There are many persons whom 

 it never touches, or at least, as I rather fancy, to whom it 

 causes no annoyance if it does attack them ; while there are 

 others — myself among the number — who seem to be the centre 

 of attack of every blood-sucking insect in the neighbourhood, 

 and who suffer little less than tortiu-e from their venomous 

 beaks. In attaining its prey, the Bug often displays much in- 

 genuity. If it cannot otherwise get at a person who is lying 

 on a bed, it will ascend the wall, crawl along the ceiling, and 

 then fall on the bed, to the great discomfiture of its inmate. 



I have remarked that in most cases those who are most 

 obnoxious to the attacks of the Bug are most • sensitive to its 

 odour, and vice versa. There were some rooms in Paris in 

 which these abominable insects swarmed. They even came out 

 in the daytime, and I have seen the little scarlet young 

 perambulating the walls in the early morning. My olfactory 

 nerves, however, were amply sufficient, without the sense of 

 sight, to betray the presence of the insects, and yet the inmates 

 of the room were absolutely insensible both in nostrils and skin 

 to the presence of these abominable insects. 



A still stronger case occurs to my memory. Some years ago 

 at Oxford, I was visiting a working shoe-maker. The room 

 was clean, and the walls neatly, though rather quaintly, deco- 



