110 INSECTS, 



The scarlet locust, figured by Edwards in fits 

 Natural History, came accidentally alive from 

 the West Indies in a basket of pine apples. A 

 very curious instance was observed in England 

 in 1S10, when an insect of the genus buprestis was 

 taken from a desk made of fir, brought from the 

 Baltic, and fixed up in 1788 or 1789. The cimex 

 lectularius, or bed bug, was scarcely known in 

 England until sixteen hundred seventy, when it is 

 said to have been imported among timber used 

 in rebuilding London, after the great fire of 1G66. 

 The Americans assert the same thing in a more 

 extended sense, and insist that fleas, moth, bed- 

 bugs and cock roaches, are foreigners. 1 do not 

 believe that either allegation is correct. In 1670 

 there were not probably many bedsteads in Eng- 

 land to attract the bug. Rushes and straw form- 

 ed, at that period, the couches of most of the peo- 

 ple. I know that pigeons often swarm with bed 

 bugs, and also the domestic rabbit. I can speak 

 from experience, when I say that the American bed 

 bug is a larger variety than the English. How 

 easy to avoid this evil by frequent ablutions — by 

 bedsteads made of iron, or without any apertures 

 — and bv the use of a little sandal wood, which 

 is an antidote against all kinds of insects, or in 

 this case, of sassafras, which is said to be a com- 

 plete preventive of the cimex lectularius, and 



