HANGERS-ON OF MAN 421 



The original home of the Bed-bug (Cimex lectularius\ 

 a creature known to Americans by the elegant and apposite 

 name of '' Mahogany Flat," has long been a subject of bitter 

 recriminations. Englishmen were too ready to attribute it 

 to America ; Americans forcibly stated that it came to the 

 New World from England with the early colonists. Now, 

 in an entente cordiale, for which there are admirable scientific 

 grounds, both nations have agreed to regard it as an alien, 

 native of the distant eastern portion of the Mediterranean 

 basin. Thence with man it has become cosmopolitan, a gift 

 of civilization to new worlds. Unknown in Britain before 

 the sixteenth century, so far as records reveal, it had 

 certainly become sufficiently common in 1583 to cause 

 alarm amongst ladies of high degree, whose habitations at 

 Mortlake, so Moufet informs us, it had unceremoniously 

 invaded. In the early days of its appearance, influenced 

 by the movements of commerce, it was most common in 

 seaports, as was to be expected, and even as late as the 

 first quarter of the eighteenth century it was said to be a 

 rare object in places inland. 



A near relative of the Common Bed-bug, the Tropica. 

 Bed-bug (Cimex kemiptera), a native of the warmer regions 

 of Asia and Africa, has taken part, like the other, in the 

 wanderings of man, for it has become established in Australia 

 and North America, in the Antilles and Brazil, though its 

 predilection for a high temperature tends to restrict its 

 range. 



Fleas, especially Pulex irritans, and various forms of 

 Lice the Head- Louse (Pediculus capitis), the Clothes- 

 Louse (P. humanus], and the Crab- Louse (Pkthiruspubis) 

 have been carried everywhere with man; the Itch-Mite 

 (Sarcoptes scabiei] is also universal, and even the Spiny 

 Ear-Tick (Ornithodoros megnini\ which sometimes forsakes 

 its usual habitat in the ears of American domestic animals 

 to take up its abode in those of man, has been transported 

 to England in the ear of an American visitor. 



Internal parasites " Flukes," Round-Worms, and Tape- 

 Worms are even more deeply committed to human migrations 

 than their external confederates. The Beef Tape-Worm 

 (Taenia saginatd], the Pork Tape- Worm (Taenia soliuni), 

 the Dwarf Tape-Worm (7". nana\ and the Broad Tape- Worm 



